Evidence for Hopping Transport in Boron-Doped Diamond

Electrical resistivity results were obtained from boron-doped natural and synthetic diamond over the temperature interval from 88 to 293°K. Resistivities ranged from ≫${10}^{14}$ Ω-cm for undoped diamond to ${10}^{-2\mathrm{}}$ Ω-cm for "heavily" doped diamond. Analysis of the activation energies, obtained from the temperature dependency of the resistivity, indicate anomalous behavior. The tentative model, proposed to explain the results, is based on the impurity-level conduction scheme of Mott for compensated semiconductors.