Intracenter dipole transitions of a hydrogen-like boron acceptor in diamond: oscillator srengths and line broadening

Abstract

Substitutional boron in diamond acts as an acceptor center with the ionization energy of about 372 meV. Unlike its analogues in elemental semiconductors (silicon, germanium), boron bound states are poorly described by the electronic mass approximation due to the large ionization energy and the small spin-orbit splitting of the valence band in diamond. Thereby experimental investigations appear to be a main way of study of discrete electronic states of boron in diamond. In this paper, we report infrared (IR) absorption spectroscopy results obtained for HPHT-grown single crystal diamonds doped with natural boron (80% 11B – 20% 10B), and with isotopically enriched boron (99% 11B – 1% 10B). A moderate dopant concentration (1e16–1e17 / cm3), low concentration of lattice defects and vanishing thermal impact at cryogenic temperatures provided significantly reduced line broadening so that more than 60 boron transitions could be spectrally resolved. Mathematical approximation of the spectral lines revealed the main empiric features of zero-phonon dipole intracenter transitions: their energy, linewidth and integrated absorption. This allowed us to calculate oscillator strength of the boron acceptor transitions in diamond. The Lorentzian shape of the spectral lines indicates dominating uniform broadening of the transitions. Together with the relatively broad linewidths (0.1–0.5 meV) it reveals strong electron-phonon interaction in boron-doped diamond.