Generally
speaking, for a semiconductor, the temperature dependence
of excitonic emission corresponds to that of its band gap. However,
an anomalous behavior is exhibited by the excitonic luminescence of
diamond where as the temperature increases (from 10 to 300 K), its
indirect exciton luminescence peak displays a spectral-distinguishable
blue shift, whereas the indirect band-gap absorption shows a weak
red shift. According to experimental high-resolution deep-ultraviolet
spectra and theoretical analysis, the weak red shift of its indirect
band gap is ascribed to its large Debye temperature (ΘD ≈ 2220 K), which makes the lattice constant change comparatively
little in a large temperature range, so the change of its band gap
is relatively small; in this case, as the temperature rises, the thermal
population of valence-band holes that moves to a high-energy state
far away from the Fermi surface contributes to the macroscopic blue
shift of its excitonic emission.