Assembling the Building Blocks for Diamond Electronics
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0956-J01-02
Assembling the Building Blocks for Diamond Electronics William Joseph Yost Harris International, Cambridge, MA, 02142
ABSTRACT The desire to exploit the extreme properties which differentiate diamond from other, more mature wide bandgap technologies has recently been given further impetus by the development of high quality single crystal CVD diamond material [1]. To realise the significant potential of diamond devices over existing device technology depends on completing a number of key objectives, in particular providing: (a). access in volume to high quality, ultra-high purity, single crystal material, (b). the capability to provide carriers by doping the material in a controlled manner, (c). the ability to process thin layers and structures. Providing access to bulk single crystal diamond (albeit not electronic grade material) has already been largely achieved and plates are commercially available for cutting applications [2]. Routes to providing suitable charge carriers are being widely investigated. Although intrinsic diamond can have exceptional electronic properties [1], in reports of both p-type and n-type diamond [3,4] the dopants are very deep (0.37 eV and 0.6 eV for boron and phosphorous respectively), which limits the realisation of conventional electronic devices operating at ambient temperatures. A series of novel devices undergone preliminary experimental evaluation. Devices made up of boron and intrinsic layers, where the boron concentration exceeds the limit of metallic conduction (>1×1020 cm-3), offer carrier diffusion at room temperature from the highly doped regions with low mobility, into adjacent regions of intrinsic material with high carrier mobility [5]. To provide the required device performance, the interface between the doped and intrinsic layers needs to be defect free and to change doping levels by several orders of magnitude in a few atomic layers. Although progress over the last few years has been rapid, there remain substantial technical challenges ahead for the realisation of large scale diamond active electronics. This paper will identify and review progress against these key issues. INTRODUCTION Diamond is well known as being the hardest of all materials making it useful in various mechanical applications, and its remarkable optical properties including transmitting from the UV to the microwave make it a superb window material. Less well known are the extreme electronic and thermal properties of diamond, which have raised considerable excitement over its use as a semiconductor material in certain applications. The charge-carrier mobilities (>2000 cm2V-1s-1), dielectric field strength (>10 MVcm-1) and thermal conductivity (>2000 Wm-1K-1) of high purity natural diamond are such that it is believed to be especially well suited to operation as a semiconductor material wherever high frequencies in combination with high power, high temperatures, or high voltages are required.
Despite more than two decades of research, diamond-based electronics have not yet been commercia
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