Superinjection in diamond homojunction P-I-N diodes

Abstract

Diamond and many newly emerged wide bandgap semiconductor materials show outstanding optical and magnetic properties. However, they cannot be as efficiently doped as silicon or gallium arsenide, which limits their practical applicability. Here, we theoretically predict a superinjection effect in diamond p-i-n diodes, which allows for the injection of orders of magnitude more electrons into the i-region of the diode than doping of the n-type injection layer allows. Moreover, we show that the efficiency of electron injection can be further improved using an i-p grating implemented in the i-region of the diode. The predicted superinjection effect enables us to overcome fundamental limitations related to the high activation energy of donors in diamond and provides the opportunity to design high-performance devices.