High-temperature performances of diamond-based UV-photodetectors

Self-supported CVD diamond films having coplanar contacts spaced down to 100 mu m have been characterized in the temperature range 300-600 K by electrical measurements in the dark and under illumination at lambda = 220 nm. Up to 600 K the dark conductivity values are smaller than 10(-9) S cm(-1) and spectrally resolved photocurrent yield measurements in the range 200-800 nm exhibit more than four orders of magnitude discrimination between intrinsic (below 230 nm) and extrinsic (above 230 nm) photoresponses. A thermal activation of the UV photoresponse is also observed, giving an average temperature coefficient for intrinsic photoresponses around 1%/degrees C. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.