Electron-Beam-Induced Dissociation of Boron-Deuterium Pairs in Diamond

The diffusion of deuterium in boron-doped homoepitaxial diamond films leads to the passivation of boron acceptors via the formation of B-D pairs. In this letter, the stability of these complexes is investigated under the stress of a low-energy (10keV) electron-beam irradiation at low temperature (∼100K). The dissociation of the complexes is evidenced by cathodoluminescence spectroscopy and is shown to result in the reactivation of most acceptors. The dissociation yield per incident electron is found to be strongly dependent on the e-beam current, which suggests a dissociation involving a vibrational excitation of the complexes by hot electrons.