Coimplantations of carbon and one of the group II accepters, Mg, Zn, or Cd, were performed and compared to implantations involving only a single element (Mg, Zn, or Cd) or Ga and C coimplanted into GaAs substrates. The group II and C (II/C) coimplantations act to balance the crystal stoichiometry since group II atoms prefer to reside in the Ga sublattice and C prefers to reside in the As sublattice. The electrical characteristics of the various implantations were obtained from sheet and differential Hall measurements. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry was employed to determine the amount of implantation-induced damage which was then correlated to the amount of C activation in the group II/C coimplanted samples. It was found that coimplantation of the heavier group II acceptors, Zn and Cd, resulted in layers with larger peak hole concentrations. This is a result of the large amount of lattice damage created by these elements which is thought to provide the necessary abundance of As vacancies for C activation. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy measurements of the samples after implant activation indicate that C coimplantation significantly reduces the diffusivity of the group II accepters. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy indicated a unique defect structure (extrinsic dislocation loops) for the cases of group II/C coimplantation. These dislocation loops are located at the diffusion front of the group II element in the samples and therefore have a rather profound influence on the diffusion of the group II elements. A rationalization of the defect structure and the effect it has on the diffusion of group II elements is given. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(98)07220-X].