Intrinsic radiative lifetimes of donor-acceptor pair excitations in diamond

The intrinsic decay dynamics of pair excitations involving a deep donor and a shallow acceptor in chemical-vapor-deposited diamond is studied by time-resolved photoluminescence. Appropriate excitation conditions result in a distinctive decay behavior of individual donor-acceptor pair excitations, with extremely short radiative decay times in the picosecond-to-nanosecond regime.