Nano Express
Doping of vanadium to nanocrystalline diamond films by hot filament chemical vapor deposition
Author affiliations
Key Laboratory for Thin Film and Microfabrication of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Micro/Nano Science and Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, People's Republic of China
Citation and License
Nanoscale Research Letters 2012, 7:441 doi:10.1186/1556-276X-7-441
Published: 8 August 2012Abstract
Doping an impure element with a larger atomic volume into crystalline structure of buck crystals is normally blocked because the rigid crystalline structure could not tolerate a larger distortion. However, this difficulty may be weakened for nanocrystalline structures. Diamonds, as well as many semiconductors, have a difficulty in effective doping. Theoretical calculations carried out by DFT indicate that vanadium (V) is a dopant element for the n-type diamond semiconductor, and their several donor state levels are distributed between the conduction band and middle bandgap position in the V-doped band structure of diamond. Experimental investigation of doping vanadium into nanocrystalline diamond films (NDFs) was first attempted by hot filament chemical vapor deposition technique. Acetone/H2 gas mixtures and vanadium oxytripropoxide (VO(OCH2CH2CH3)3) solutions of acetone with V and C elemental ratios of 1:5,000, 1:2,000, and 1:1,000 were used as carbon and vanadium sources, respectively. The resistivity of the V-doped NDFs decreased two orders with the increasing V/C ratios.
