Optically enhanced forced diffusion of sulfur and chlorine in diamond

Diffusion of sulfur and chlorine in natural diamond was studied under electric bias with thermal and optical ionization of impurities. It was shown that the concentration of sulfur and chlorine was two orders of magnitude larger in the positively biased samples compared with negatively biased ones when optical ionization was used. Most probably these impurities diffuse through interstitial sites of the diamond lattice as negatively charged ions. The new method of optically enhanced forced diffusion of impurities may have practical interest for diamond and other wide band gap semiconductors, allowing larger concentration of diffused atoms to be obtained at lower temperatures.