Electronic surface barrier properties of boron-doped diamond oxidized by plasma treatment

The electronic surface barrier characteristics of single-crystal and nanocrystalline boron-doped diamond in electrolytes are evaluated. Two cases are compared: Oxidation by RF oxygen plasma treatment and oxidation by anodic polarization in alkaline electrolyte. It is shown that the plasma treatment reduces the surface barrier to about 1.0 eV compared to 1.7 eV when subjected to anodic oxidation. For single-crystalline diamond, the oxygen evolution reaction in 0.1 M H2SO4 electrolyte is almost insensitive to the oxidation method while the plasma-treated nanocrystalline diamond electrode shows an enhanced activity of grain boundary defects at anodic potentials. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy measurements reveal that the plasma oxidation induces a higher content of carbonyl surface groups than anodic oxidation as well as a small amount of non-sp3 contents.