N-type electrically conductive ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films were deposited using the hot filament chemical vapor deposition technique with a gas mixture of H2, CH4 and NH3. Depending on the deposition temperature and ammonia feed gas concentration, which serves as a nitrogen source, room temperature electrical conductivities in the order of 10−2 to 5 × 101 S/cm and activation energies in the meV range were achieved. In order to understand the origin of the enhanced electrical conductivity and clarify the role of ammonia addition to the process gas, a set of UNCD films was grown by systematically varying the ammonia gas phase concentration. These samples were analyzed with respect to their morphology and electrical properties as well as their carbon and nitrogen bonding environments. Temperature dependent electrical conductivity measurements (300–1200 K) show that the electrical conductivity of the samples increases with temperature. The near edge x-ray absorption fine structure measurements reveal that the electrical conductivity of the UNCD films does not correlate directly with ammonia addition, but depends on the total amount of sp2 bonded carbon in the deposited films.
We present the synthesis of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films by application of hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD). We furthermore studied the different morphological, structural, and electrical properties. The grown films are fine grained with grain sizes between 4 and 7 nm. The UNCD films exhibit different electrical conductivities, dependent on grain boundary structure. We present different contact metallizations exhibiting ohmic contact behavior and good adhesion to the UNCD surface. The temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity is presented between −200 and 900°C. We furthermore present spectroscopic investigations of the films, supporting that the origin of the conductivity is the structure and volume of the grain boundary.
In this work we show the correlation of the electrical conductivity of ultra-nanocrystalline (UNCD) diamond films grown by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) with their structural properties. The substrate temperature, the methane to hydrogen ratio and the pressure are the main factor influencing the growth of conductive UNCD films, which extends from electrical resistive diamond films (<10-4 S/cm) to highly conductive diamond films with a specific conductivity of 300 S/cm. High-resolution-transmission-electron-microscopy (HRTEM) and electron-energy-loss-spectroscopy (EELS) have been done on the highly conductive diamond films, to show the origin of the high electrical conductivity. The HRTEM results show random oriented diamond grains and a large amount of nano-graphite between the diamond crystals. EELS investigations are confirming these results. Raman measurements are correlated with the specific conductivity, which shows structural changes of sp2 carbons bonds as function of conductivity. Hall experiments complete the results, which lead to a model of an electron mobility based conductivity, which is influenced by the structural properties of the grain boundary regions in the ultra-nanocrystalline diamond films.
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