A novel diamond anvil cell suitable for electrical transport measurements under high pressure has been developed. A boron-doped metallic diamond film was deposited as an electrode onto a nano-polycrystalline diamond anvil using a microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition technique combined with electron beam lithography. The electrical transport measurements of Pb were performed up to 8 GPa, and the maximum pressure reached was above 30 GPa. The boron-doped metallic diamond electrodes showed no signs of degradation after repeated compression measurements.
A diamond anvil cell (DAC) which can generate extremely high pressure of multi-megabar is promising tool to develop a further physics such a high-transition temperature superconductivity. However, electrical transport measurements, which is one of the most important properties of such functional materials, using the DAC is quite difficult because the sample space is very small and a deformation of electrodes under extreme condition. In this study, we fabricated a boron-doped diamond micro-electrode and an undoped diamond insulation on a beveled culet surface of the diamond anvil. By using the developed DAC, we demonstrated the electrical transport measurements for sulfur hydride H$_2$S which known as a pressure-induced high-transition temperature superconducting H$_3$S at high pressure. The measurements were successfully conducted under high pressure up to 192 GPa, and then a multi-step superconducting transition composed from pure sulfur and some kinds of surfer hydrides, which is possible HS$_2$, was observed with zero resistance.
Superconductivity of boron-doped diamond, reported recently at T_c=4 K, is investigated exploiting its electronic and vibrational analogies to MgB2. The deformation potential of the hole states arising from the C-C bond stretch mode is 60% larger than the corresponding quantity in MgB2 that drives its high Tc, leading to very large electron-phonon matrix elements. The calculated coupling strength lambda ~ 0.5 leads to T_c in the 5-10 K range and makes phonon coupling the likely mechanism. Higher doping should increase T_c somewhat, but effects of three dimensionality primarily on the density of states keep doped diamond from having a T_c closer to that of MgB2.
This work investigates the high-pressure structure of freestanding superconducting ($T_{c}$ = 4.3,K) boron doped diamond (BDD) and how it affects the electronic and vibrational properties using Raman spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction in the 0-30,GPa range. High-pressure Raman scattering experiments revealed an abrupt change in the linear pressure coefficients and the grain boundary components undergo an irreversible phase change at 14,GPa. We show that the blue shift in the pressure-dependent vibrational modes correlates with the negative pressure coefficient of $T_{c}$ in BDD. The analysis of x-ray diffraction data determines the equation of state of the BDD film, revealing a high bulk modulus of $B_{0}$=510$pm$28,GPa. The comparative analysis of high-pressure data clarified that the sp$^{2}$ carbons in the grain boundaries transform into hexagonal diamond.
We consider superconductivity in boron (B) doped diamond using a simplified model for the valence band of diamond. We treat the effects of substitutional disorder of B ions by the coherent potential approximation (CPA) and those of the attractive force between holes by the ladder approximation under the assumption of instantaneous interaction with the Debye cutoff. We thereby calculate the quasiparticle life time, the evolution of the single-particle spectra due to doping, and the effect of disorder on the superconducting critical temperature $T_c$. We in particular compare our results with those for supercell calculations to see the role of disorder, which turns out to be of crucial importance to $T_c$.
Scanning tunneling spectroscopies are performed below 100~mK on nano-crystalline boron-doped diamond films characterized by Transmission Electron Microscopy and transport measurements. We demonstrate a strong correlation between the local superconductivity strength and the granular structure of the films. The study of the spectral shape, amplitude and temperature dependence of the superconductivity gap enables us to differentiate intrinsically superconducting grains that follow the BCS model, from grains showing a different behavior involving the superconducting proximity effect.