Transport properties of polycrystalline boron doped diamond

The influence of doping level in the electronic conductivity and resistivity properties of synthetic diamond films grown by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) was investigated. Eight different doping level concentrations varied from 500 to 30,000 ppm were considered. The polycrystalline morphology observed by scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectra was strongly affected by the addition of boron. The electric characterization by Hall effect as a function of temperature and magnetic field showed that at sufficiently low temperatures, electrical conduction is dominated by variable range hopping (VRH) conducting process. The resistivity was also investigated by temperature-dependent transport measurements in order to investigate the conduction mechanism in the doped samples. The samples exhibited the VRH (m = 1/4) mechanism in the temperature range from 77 to 300 K. The interface between metal, and our HFCVD diamond was also investigated for the lower doped samples. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.