Determining the content and binding energy of hydrogen in diamond films

The possibility of directly determining the concentration and binding energy of hydrogen in diamond film samples by heating in a vacuum and using an AV-1 industrial hydrogen analyzer is demonstrated. A mathematical processing of experimentally measured temporal dependences of the hydrogen flux into a vacuum at various sample temperatures made it possible to determine the binding energies of hydrogen with diamond film structures. The binding energies of hydrogen take values within the range from 0.20 to 1.80 eV. The binding energies of hydrogen are high compared with the thermal motion energy (0.025 eV) and are several times lower than the C–H bond energy equal to 4.29 eV. The wide range of hydrogen binding energies indicates that there are hydrogen traps of various natures or several mechanisms of hydrogen interaction with diamond film structures.