Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2011
Porous solids made of nano diamonds cemented by pyrocarbon show a semiconductor behavior where the properties are controlled by the factor γ = mass ratio of sp2/sp3 phases. The volume electrical conductivity μ (T) was measured in the temperature range 77 - 290 K as a function of γ. By controlling the ratio γ from 0 to 50 %, the electrical conductivity will change by 12 orders of magnitude. The semiconductor activation energy depends on γ-ratio and has values between 0.03 - 0.3 eV. The variable-range hopping conduction was checked by measuring μ against T and to look for a T1/4 dependence. A positive thermoelectric power showed that NDC was p-semiconductor with a narrow band gap. The paramagnetic nanodiamonds, g = 2.0027(1) and δH = 0.86(2) mT, will still have this property in the NDC material and both the g-value and line width are not dependent on γ-ratio and temperature. The concentration of unpaired electrons is 41019 spin/g that equals to one dangling bond per nanodiamond particle. Absences of magnetoresistance and Hall potential were observed for all NDC materials. This was interpreted as resulting from a Tamm - Lifshitz - Pekar electronic conduction mechanism within onedimensional band of surface states.