Temperature dependence of growth-sector-dependent Raman spectra of boron-doped diamonds synthesized at high-pressure high-temperature

Abstract

Single crystals of boron-doped diamond (BDD) were synthesized by the temperature gradient method in high-pressure and high-temperature conditions in the Fe–Al–B–C system, and multisectoral diamond plates were extracted. Temperature-dependent (77–600 K) high-resolution Raman spectroscopic studies have been carried out to investigate the behavior of anharmonic phonon decay in the {001}, {113}, and {111} growth sectors of multisectoral diamond plates with different content of boron impurities (⩽80 ppm) and compare with the data for undoped IIa diamond. Micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to estimate the spatial distribution of uncompensated boron impurity [Na-Nd] in BDD plates by analyzing boron-related absorption peaks. The plates were shown to have non-uniform growth-sector-dependent content of uncompensated boron impurity in the range from 1.1 × 1018 to 1.4 × 1019 cm−3. The effects of anharmonic decay (damping) of optical phonons in BDD are studied by modeling the temperature dependence of phonon frequency and linewidth of the diamond’s F2g and boron-induced vibrational modes. The extrapolated zero-temperature optical phonon linewidth and frequency and the anharmonic nature of their linear relationship are determined as a function of the growth sector and boron doping. The predominant mechanisms and parameters of the anharmonic decay of optical phonons are determined, which is of fundamental importance for the thermal conductivity of semiconductor materials. The anharmonic phonon decay remained the predominant process at higher temperatures, irrespective of the doping level.