Professors John Angus and Alfred Anderson of Case Western Reserve University will complete fundamental studies of the interactions between donor and acceptor dopants in chemical-vapor-deposited diamond films in work supported by the Analytical and Surface Chemistry program. The goal of this project is an understanding of charge transport properties through interfaces of such surfaces with electrolytes. In this project, the emphasis is on a semiconducting diamond layer with boron as the primary dopant. Properties of the surface are studied through theoretical modeling, and through experimental techniques such as electrochemical measurements, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and surface tunneling microscopy, each of which have been successfully used in past work in this laboratory.
Diamond films on electrode surfaces have attractive properties of wide potential range and low intrinsic electrical noise when used in devices used as chemical sensors, and used in electrosynthetic applications. This project provides the understanding of how electrical charge moves through these thin films, especially those with trace levels of dopant atoms. .
