Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): James Beattie, Professor Jon Goss, Dr Mark Rayson, Professor Patrick Briddon
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
© 2019 Elsevier B.V. Control over the chemical termination of diamond surfaces has shown great promise in the realization of field-emission applications, the selection of charge states of near-surface color-centers such as NV, and the realization of surface-conductive channels for electronic device applications. Efficient electron-emission exploiting the negative electron-affinity requires a stable surface treatment that can operate over a useful range of temperatures, for which H-termination fails. For compounds involving oxygen, surface geometry and layer stoichiometry are thought to be critical parameters in engineering the desired affinity. In this study, we show that large negative electron-affinities (−2 to −3 eV) are found for surfaces with an AlO 3 stoichiometry, and the formation is exothermic. Higher proportions of Al increases the likelihood of metallic bonding between Al atoms, decreasing the bond-polarity and increasing the electron affinity (making it less negative). AlO 2 and Al 2 O 3 present unfavorable electron affinities, and have a lower thermal stability.
Author(s): Beattie JMA, Goss JP, Rayson MJ, Briddon PR
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Diamond and Related Materials
Year: 2019
Volume: 94
Pages: 137-145
Print publication date: 01/04/2019
Online publication date: 02/03/2019
Acceptance date: 09/02/2019
Date deposited: 17/04/2019
ISSN (print): 0925-9635
Publisher: Elsevier Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diamond.2019.02.009
DOI: 10.1016/j.diamond.2019.02.009
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
