The surface conductivity of (111)-and (100)-oriented hydrogen-terminated diamonds was investigated at low temperatures for different carrier densities. The carrier density was controlled in a wide range in an electric doublelayer transistor configuration using ionic liquids. As the carrier density was increased, the temperature dependences of sheet resistance and mobility changed from semiconducting to metallic ones: the sheet resistance and mobility for the (111) surface were nearly independent of temperature for a sheet carrier density of %4 Â 10 13 cm À2 , indicating metallic carrier transport. It was also found that the interface capacitance, determined from the gate voltage dependence of the Hall carrier density, depended significantly on the crystal orientation.

Although the two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG) of a hydrogen-terminated diamond surface provides a unique p-type conducting layer for high-performance transistors, the conductivity is highly sensitive to its environment. Therefore, the surface must be passivated to preserve the 2DHG, especially at high temperature. We passivated the surface at high temperature (450 °C) without the loss of C-H surface bonds by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and investigated the thermal reliability of the Al2O3 film. As a result, C-H bonds were preserved, and the hole accumulation effect appeared after the Al2O3 deposition by ALD with H2O as an oxidant. The sheet resistivity and hole density were almost constant between room temperature and 500 °C by the passivation with thick Al2O3 film thicker than 38 nm deposited by ALD at 450 °C. After the annealing at 550 °C in air The sheet resistivity and hole density were preserved. These results indicate the possibility of high-temperature application of the C-H surface diamond device in air. In the case of lower deposition temperatures, the sheet resistivity increased after air annealing, suggesting an insufficient protection capability of these films. Given the result of sheet resistivity after annealing, the increase in the sheet resistivity of these samples was not greatly significant. However, bubble like patterns were observed in the Al2O3 films formed from 200 to 400 °C by air annealing at 550 °C for 1 h. On the other hand, the patterns were no longer observed at 450 °C deposition. Thus, this 450 °C deposition is the sole solution to enabling power device application, which requires high reliability at high temperatures.

Use of two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG), induced on a hydrogenated diamond surface, is a solution to overcoming one of demerits of diamond, i.e., deep energy levels of impurities. This 2DHG is affected by its environment and accordingly needs a passivation film to get a stable device operation especially at high temperature. In response to this requirement, we achieved the high-reliability passivation forming an Al2O3 film on the diamond surface using an atomic-layer-deposition (ALD) method with an H2O oxidant at 450 °C. The 2DHG thus protected survived air annealing at 550 °C for an hour, establishing a stable high-temperature operation of 2DHG devices in air. In part, this achievement is based on high stability of C-H bonds up to 870 °C in vacuum and above 450 °C in an H2O-containing environment as in the ALD. Chemically, this stability is supported by the fact that both the thermal decomposition of C-H bonds and reaction between C-H bonds and H2O are endothermic processes. It makes a stark contrast to the instability of Si-H bonds, which decompose even at room temperature being exposed to atomic hydrogen. In this respect, the diamond 2DHG devices are also promising as power devices expectedly being free from many instability phenomena, such as hot carrier effect and negative-bias temperature instability, associated with Si devices. As to adsorbate, which is the other prerequisite for 2DHG, it desorbed in vacuum below 250 °C, and accordingly some new adsorbates should have adsorbed during the ALD at 450 °C. As a clue to this question, we certainly confirmed that some adsorbates, other than those at room temperature, adsorbed in air above 100 °C and remained at least up to 290 °C. The identification of these adsorbates is open for further investigation.

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Here we report the performance of surface functionalized diamond surfaces as biosensing platform for human immunodeficiency virus trans-activator of transcription (HIV-Tat) peptide detection. Comparative investigations were conducted on nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) and polycrystalline diamond (PCD) films. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images revealed the morphology differences between NCD and PCD films. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) data showed that functional components and corresponding coverages, demonstrating denser carboxyl acid groups and fluorinated groups on NCD than that PCD films after UV/ozone and fluorine plasma treatment respectively. Contact angle results showed the differences in surface wettability and free energy between functionalized NCD and PCD biosensors. Fluorescence observations confirmed that higher biosensing performance can be obtained on NCD biosensors with high sensitivity selectivity, and stability. The NCD films with denser surface coverages of functionalizations made NCD films much more priority as an effective biosensing candidate than PCD films.