Influence of defect inhomogeneities in high quality natural diamond detectors

The presence of impurities in natural diamond detectors and their influence on the detection properties have been investigated. A micrometer size X-ra y beam generated by a synchrotron light source as well as collimated alpha particles were used to probe the effects induced by non isotropic distribut ions of defects on diamond detector characteristics. A strong correlation c learly appears between the measured photocurrent maps and the X-ray induced luminescence pictures. Spatially resolved alpha measurements are compared to local infrared and ultraviolet absorption measurements and demonstrate t he influence of defects on local and global diamond detection spectra. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. Ah rights reserved.