Abstract
We present an ab initio study of the recently discovered superconductivity of boron doped diamond within the framework of a phonon-mediated pairing mechanism. The role of the dopant, in substitutional position, is unconventional in that half of the coupling parameter originates in strongly localized defect-related vibrational modes, yielding a very peaked Eliashberg function. The electron-phonon coupling potential is found to be extremely large, and is limited by the low value of the density of states at the Fermi level. The effect of boron isotope substitution is explored.
- Received 7 May 2004
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.237004
©2004 American Physical Society