Optical evaluation of carrier lifetime and diffusion length in synthetic diamonds

The key electronic parameters of high-pressure-high-temperature and chemical-vapor-deposition grown diamonds have been determined at interband (hν = 5.82 eV) or below bandgap (hν = 4.68 eV) photoexcitation, using a picosecond transient grating (TG) technique. TG kinetics directly provided the values of ambipolar diffusion coefficient (6–10 cm2/s) and carrier lifetime (in a range from 0.17 to 2.8 ns) for crystals grown under different conditions. The carrier diffusion length was found to vary from 0.5 μm in CVD layers to 1.6 μm for IIa type HPHT diamond crystal. The carrier lifetimes correlated well with the nitrogen-related defect density in both types of diamonds.