The nature of the damage, and its annealing behavior, were studied by monitoring changes in electrical conductivity, density and Raman spectrum as a function of the implantation dose and annealing temperature. Use was made of the marked differences, between the properties of diamond and graphite, to study the kinetics of the structural transformation of damaged diamond during annealing. It was found that, for low-dose implantation (which created damage below a certain critical density), the damaged material was rich in point defects and annealed back to diamond via well-defined defect states such as the split interstitial <100> dumb-bell. On the other hand, implantation to doses which created damage in excess of the above critical density resulted in a fully amorphized and mainly sp2-bonded material which was converted to graphite by annealing. The onset of graphitization in heavily damaged samples was found to begin at about 800K.

The Nature of Damage in Ion-Implanted and Annealed Diamond. R.Kalish, A.Reznik, K.W.Nugent, S.Prawer: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 1999, 148[1-4], 626-33