Electrical properties of undoped polycrystalline diamond thin films on silicon

Paper in proceeding, 1996

We have investigated the electrical properties of undoped polycrystalline diamond thin films deposited on (100)-oriented n-type and p-type silicon substrates. The films, intended for electronic applications, were manufactured using hot filament chemical vapour deposition (HFCVD). To a large extent the capacitance-voltage characteristics are influenced by traps located close to the interface between the diamond layer and the silicon substrate. These traps play an important role for voltage sharing between the diamond layer and the silicon space charge region. The DC current density through the diamond film has the same functional dependence on the electric field for films deposited on both n- and p-Si. The field dependency agrees with a Frenkel-Poole transport model. Further, although the DC current transport is thermally activated, it does not follow an Arrhenius relation. A possible reason is that traps within a broad range of energy levels are involved in the charge transport. Finally, current transients resulting from stepwise changes in the applied voltage follow a power law time dependence where the kinetics depend only weakly on temperature