Dedication

Christoph E. Nebel

(9 August 1956)

It is with immense pleasure that we dedicate this Topical Section on “Novel aspects of diamond” in the journal physica status solidi (a) – applications and materials science to Dr. Christoph E. Nebel in honor and celebration of his 60th birthday. As a pioneer, innovator and contributor in the fields of chemistry, physics and engineering of wide-band gap semiconductors, Dr. Nebel is well recognized all over the world. His inspiration which he imparted to his students, postdoctoral research associates, collaborators and peers is evident in the collection of articles archived in this issue.

Dr. Nebel is the head of the Department of Semiconductor Sensors at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF) in Freiburg, Germany, since 2009. He obtained his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Stuttgart in 1990 and his second PhD degree in Physics in 1998 due to his habilitation that addressed optical and electronic characteristics of CVD diamond. Between 1990 and 1992 he was a post-doc at the Xerox Research Center, Palo Alto, California, USA, financed by the Alexander v. Humboldt Foundation, Germany, as part of the Fedor Lynen Research Fellowship program. In 1993 he joined the team of Martin Stutzmann at the Walter Schottky Institute, Technische Universität München, Germany, to work on diamond as a promising new wide bandgap material. In 2004 he moved to the newly founded Diamond Research Center of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan, to become team leader of the Bio-Functionalized Device team. Since 2008 he was back to Germany at the Fraunhofer IAF.

Dr. Nebel impacted the community with his work on the growth and characterization of amorphous semiconductors, application and characterization of laser crystallization of microcrystalline silicon for solar cell applications. He has devoted himself more and more to the growth, characterization and applications of diamond films, such as plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of single-crystalline diamond, diamond based power devices, photocatalytic applications of diamond, quantum metrology etc. In these fields he has co-edited 5 books, written 12 editorials and 15 review articles, and published around 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals. Some of his key publications are listed below. He was the Chair of the European Conference on Diamond, Diamond-Like Materials, Carbon Nanotubes and Nitrides (now DCM for Diamond and Carbon Materials). He has been strongly involved as organizer and program committee member for further 10 international conferences.

In this special issue we collected 17 papers contributed by diamond specialists and experts from all over the world. The Feature Article by Matthias Schreck et al. is a brief review about multiple roles of dislocations in heteroepitaxial growth of diamond. The Expert Opinion by Nicholas Nunn and Olga Shenderova presents a golden standard in single digit detonation nanodiamond. In our view, the other 15 Original Papers cover almost all diamond related research topics: there are 5 articles about the growth and properties of diamond, 2 articles about surface chemistry of diamond, 5 articles about the applications in the fields of biochemistry, medicine and electrochemistry, as well as 3 articles about device development.

We acknowledge the quality of all contributions published in this very special issue.

Happy Birthday, Christoph! We are looking forward to seeing and joining your activities in the coming years.

Nianjun Yang (University of Siegen, Germany)

Philippe Bergonzo (CEA Saclay, France)

A selection of most influential publications by Christoph E. Nebel

Diamond-Based Supercapacitors: Realization and Properties

F. Gao and C. E. Nebel, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, doi:10.1021/acsami.5b07027 (2015).

Highly porous diamond foam as a thin-film micro-supercapacitor material

F. Gao, M. Wolfer, and C.E. Nebel, Carbon 80, 833–840 (2014).

Tuned NV emission by in-plane Al-Schottky junctions on hydrogen terminated diamond

C. Schreyvogel, M. Wolfer, H. Kato, M. Schreck, and C.E. Nebel, Sci. Rep. 4, 3634 (2014), doi:10.1038/srep03634.

Surface electronic properties of diamond

C. E. Nebel, in: Super Hard Materials, edited by C.E. Nebel and V. Sarin (Elsevier, 2014), ISBN: 9780080965277, pp. 339–364.

Photocatalysis: A source of energetic electrons

C.E. Nebel, Nature Mater. 12(9), 780–781 (2013).

Tunable light emission from nitrogen-vacancy centers in single crystal diamond PIN diodes

H. Kato, M. Wolfer, C. Schreyvogel, M. Kunzer, W. Müller-Sebert, H. Obloh, S. Yamasaki, and C.E. Nebel,

Appl. Phys. Lett. 102(15), 151101 (2013).

Diamond-integrated optomechanical circuits

P. Rath, S. Khasminskaya, C.E. Nebel, C. Wild, and W.H.P. Pernice, Nature Commun. 4, 1690 (2013).

The creation of a biomimetic interface between boron-doped diamond and immobilized proteins

R. Hoffmann, A. Kriele, H. Obloh, N. Tokuda, W. Smirnov, N. Yang, and C.E. Nebel, Biomaterials 32(30), 7325–7332 (2011).

Light sources: Tackling the deep ultraviolet

Christoph E. Nebel, Nature Photon. 3(10), 564–566 (2009).

Isotopic homojunction band engineering from diamond

H. Watanabe, C.E.Nebel, and S. Shikata, Science 324(5933), 1425–1428 (2009).

Vertically Aligned Nanowires from Boron-Doped Diamond

N. Yang, H. Uestuka, E. Osawa, and C.E. Nebel, Nano Lett. 8(11), 3572–3576 (2008).

Vertically aligned diamond nanowires for DNA sensing

N. Yang, H.Uetsuka, E. Osawa, and C.E. Nebel, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 47, 5183–5185 (2008).

Properties of hybridized DNA arrays on single-crystalline undoped and boron-doped (100) diamonds studied by atomic force microscopy in electrolytes

B. Rezek, D. Shin, and C.E. Nebel, Langmuir 23(14), 7626–7676 (2007).

Diamond for biosensor applications

C.E. Nebel, B. Rezek, D. Shin, H. Uetsuka, and N. Yang, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 40, 6443–6466 (2007).

Photochemical amine layer formation on H-terminated single-crystalline CVD diamond

N. Yang, H. Uetsuka, H. Watanabe, T. Nakamura, and C.E. Nebel, Chem. Mater. 19, 2852–2859 (2007).

Alkene/Diamond Liquid/Solid Interface Characterization Using Internal Photoemission Spectroscopy

C.E. Nebel, D. Shin, D. Takeuchi, T. Yamamoto, H. Watanabe, and T. Nakamura, Langmuir 22(13), 5645–5653 (2006).

Insulator–Metal Transition of Intrinsic Diamond

D. Shin, H. Watanabe, and C.E. Nebel, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127(32), 11236–11237 (2005).

2D-hole accumulation layer in hydrogen terminated diamond

C.E. Nebel, B. Rezek, and A. Zrenner, Phys. Status Solidi A 11, 2432–2438 (2004).

From gemstone to semiconductor

C.E. Nebel, Nature Mater. 2(7), 431–432 (2003).

Electronic properties of CVD diamond

C.E. Nebel, in: Semiconductor Science and Technology Vol. 18, Special issue: Diamond Electronics,

Guest editor: R. Jackman (Institute of Physics Publishing, 2003), pp. S1–S11.

Periodic light coupler gratings in amorphous thin film solar cells

C. Eisele, C.E. Nebel, and M. Stutzmann, J. Appl. Phys. 89 (12), 7722–7726 (2001).

Long living excited states in boron doped diamond

C.E. Nebel, E. Rohrer, and M. Stutzmann, J. Appl. Phys. 89 (4), 2237 -2240 (2001).

Deep level transient spectroscopy of synthetic type IIb diamond

R. Zeisel, C.E. Nebel, and M. Stutzmann, J. Appl. Phys. 84 (11), 6105–6108 (1998).

The sign of the Hall effect in hydrogenated amorphous and disordered silicon

C.E. Nebel, M. Rother, M. Stutzmann, C. Summonte, and M. Heintze, Philos. Mag. Lett. 74, 455 (1996).

High-electric field transport in a-Si:H: 2. Dark conductivity

C.E. Nebel, R.A. Street, N.M. Johnson, and C.C. Tsai, Phys. Rev. B 46, 6803 (1992).

High-electric field transport in a-Si:H: 1. Transient photoconductivity

C.E. Nebel, R.A. Street, N.M. Johnson, and J. Kocka, Phys. Rev. B 46, 6789 (1992).

Solution of the -problem in a-Si:H

J. Kocka, C.E. Nebel, and C.-D. Abel, Philos. Mag. B 63, 221 (1991).