Decoration of growth sector boundaries with nitrogen vacancy centers in as-grown single crystal high-pressure high-temperature synthetic diamond

Abstract

Large (> 100 mm$^3$), relatively pure (type II) and low birefringence single crystal diamond can be produced by high pressure high temperature (HPHT) synthesis. In this study we examine a HPHT sample of good crystalline perfection, containing less than 1 ppb (part per billion carbon atoms) of boron impurity atoms in the {001} growth sector and only tens of ppb of nitrogen impurity atoms. It is shown that the boundaries between {111} and {113} growth sectors are decorated by negatively charged nitrogen vacancy centres (NV$^-$): no decoration is observed at any other type of growth sector interface. This decoration can be used to calculated the relative {111} and {113} growth rates. The bulk (001) sector contains concentrations of luminescent point defects (excited with 488 and 532 nm wavelengths) below 10$^{11}$ cm$^{-3}$ (10$^{-3}$ ppb). We observe the negatively charged silicon-vacancy (SiV$^-$) defect in the bulk {111} sectors along with a zero phonon line emission associated with a nickel defect at 884 nm (1.40 eV). No preferential orientation is seen for either NV$^-$ or SiV$^-$ defects, but the nickel related defect is oriented with its trigonal axis along the <111> sector growth direction. Since the NV$^-$ defect is expected to readily re-orientate at HPHT diamond growth temperatures, no preferential orientation is expected for this defect but the lack of preferential orientation of SiV$^-$ in {111} sectors is not explained.