N2 and N4 optical transitions in diamond: A breakdown of the vacancy model

R Jones, JP Goss, PR Briddon and S Öberg
Physical Review B
56
R1654–R1656
1997

The vacancy model for impurity vacancy defects in semiconductors assumes that the ground and low-energy excited states are derivable from the four sp3 hybrid orbitals on atoms bordering the vacancy. There are many cases where this model works but We describe here a counterexample concerning the lowest excited state of the [V-N3] defect in diamond. It is shown that a shallow electron trap, localized outside the vacancy, is involved in the first excited state and responsible for the N2 and N4 optical bands associated with the defect.

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