Nitrogen doping of diamond by ion implantation

Nitrogen doping is used to achieve field emission from diamond, and hence it is important to be able to dope diamond with nitrogen in a controlled way, such as that offered by ion implantation. The procedure developed for optimising p-type doping of diamond by B ion-implantation (cold implantation and in situ rapid annealing (CIRA) followed by high-temperature annealing) has been implemented here for N implantations. The implanted and annealed layer has been studied by EPR and by cathodoluminescence and photoluminescence measurements. These indicate that a high fraction of N can be incorporated into substitutional sites by the above implantation/annealing procedure and that the so-treated N-implanted diamond much resembles N-containing type Ib diamond. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.