Ion channeling studies of hydrogen in homoepitaxially grown CVD diamond

Using ion channeling measurements in conjunction with the resonant H-1(N-15,alpha gamma)C-12 nuclear reaction or with proton Rutherford backscattering spectrometry we studied the incorporation of hydrogen from the plasma into homoepitaxial (100) and (111) CVD diamond films. The measured hydrogen concentration and the structural defect density of the diamond lattice derived from proton channeling yields were observed to be correlated. Hydrogen lattice location studies for different incident ion channeling directions showed no dominant fraction of H occupying either one of the two theoretically predicted sites. These results suggest that in CVD films with quite high dislocation densities and relative H concentrations above 10(-3), hydrogen is predominantly incorporated at structural defect sites uncorrelated with the lattice symmetry. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.