Electronic band offset in a diamond|cBN|diamond system for modulation doping

Abstract

Diamond is a material with promising electronics applications but with challenges in effective doping. Cubic boron nitride (cBN), due to its similar lattice structure, is ideal for forming heterostructures with diamond, to modify electronic properties and especially shift the band positions. Here it is demonstrated how integrating cBN layers of finite thickness in diamond can induce an electronic band offset near the polarized diamond-cBN interface. Beyond the direct density functional theory computations, an analytical model is developed for rapid examination of the band offset, for a broad number of crystallographic orientations, in excellent agreement with ab initio calculations. Results show that near [100] and [111] crystal directions, the diamond|cBN|diamond heterostructure displays a 3~4 eV band offset which is expected to facilitate effective modulation doping of diamond.