Doping of single crystalline diamond with nickel

Abstract Nickel doped single crystal diamond layers were grown by microwave‐plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) utilised during growth proved that the organometallic compound nickelocene is an applicable nickel source. It was possible to produce stable and adjustable nickel OES signals during growth by altering the flux of the nickelocene carrier gas. The successful incorporation of nickel into the diamond layers was verified by secondary ion mass spectrometry. Cathodoluminescence (CL) was applied to reveal optically active defects related to nickel. The signature of substitutionally incorporated nickel, namely the nickel related 1.4 eV centre, as well as the 2.369 and 1.563 eV centres were observed in CL. The latter is supposed to be a single‐photon emitter on the basis of a nickel–nitrogen defect centre.