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arXiv · 2509.06517

200 keV energy electron irradiation of single crystal diamond: Quantification of vacancy and nitrogen-vacancy production

Chloe C Newsom·Lillian B Hughes·Ben L Green·Ania C Bleszynski Jayich·Mark E Newton
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Abstract

Electron irradiation and annealing treatments are a method of colour centre/defect creation in diamond. The depth profile of defects created by low energy 200 keV electrons in single crystal high purity (type II) electronic grade diamond grown via chemical vapour deposition has been investigated. The depth profile of monovacancies created was found, using photoluminescence (PL), to decay exponentially, with decay length $12\pm1$ $μ$m and production rate of $(1.1\pm0.2)\times 10 ^{-1}$ V/e$^{-}$/cm at the surface. The depth distribution of the neutral and negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV$^{0/-}$) centre, and the 733 nm zero phonon line defect formed during an isochronal annealing study have also been investigated by PL. The observed NV profiles, which do not match the vacancy profiles, can be qualitatively explained in terms of a simple model that includes the formation of vacancy clusters and the nitrogen-divacancy (NV$_{2}$) defect. The production of (NV$^{0/-}$) has been assumed to be nitrogen limited, but this paper has shown that this is not the case, with NVs lost to the production of NV$_{2}$ when the concentration of vacancies greatly exceeds that of substitutional nitrogen.

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Chloe C Newsom, Lillian B Hughes, Ben L Green, Ania C Bleszynski Jayich, Mark E Newton. 2025-09-08. 200 keV energy electron irradiation of single crystal diamond: Quantification of vacancy and nitrogen-vacancy production. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06517

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