1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to formation of semiconductor diamond, and particularly to formation of a semiconductor diamond thin film which exhibits a wide band gap, is durable in a hard environment, and usable in high temperature and high power semiconductor devices and blue light emitting diodes in the semiconductor industry and the electronics industry.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, diamond films have been formed by the CVD method using hydrocarbon (or carbon monoxide) and hydrogen gases. B doped p-type diamond was reported as semiconductor diamond synthesized by CVD and high pressure, high temperature techniques. Nevertheless, n-type semiconductor diamond with sufficiently low resistivity for semiconductor device applications was not achieved.
It is known that diamond crystals usually contain many of defects which prevent semiconductivity. Furthermore, using ion-implantation to fabricate semiconductor diamond introduces many of defects simultaneously in the diamond crystals. Ion implantation with post annealing techniques have been widely used in silicon device technology for doping with the desired ions in a controlled manner. Nevertheless, it is difficult to anneal out the defects in the diamond without graphitizing the diamond. Thermal annealing usually graphitizes damaged regions of the diamond because the more stable configuration of carbon is not diamond, but graphite, at atmospheric pressure and room temperature.
The conventional processes of forming semiconductor diamond are not well suited for deleting the defects in diamond without graphitizing and making semiconducting electronic conductivities.