Diamond as a unique high-tech electronic material: difficulties and prospects

Abstract

Diamond is a wide band gap semiconductor with unique electrical, physical, chemical and mechanical properties, opening the possibility to realize, in diamond, electronic devices with unprecedented properties. However, this uniqueness also poses some difficulties specific to diamond. Amongst these are the wide band gap of diamond, the presence of electrically active defects due to sp2 bonded carbon and unintentionally present impurities, the absence of shallow dopants in diamond (in particular donors), the presence of extended defects and grain boundaries (in CVD polycrystalline diamond) and difficulties related to material availability and device processing.Nevertheless, diamond-based prototype devices with promising properties have been realized in the last few years. These include, amongst others, Schottky diodes, field effect transistors, cold electron emission devices and detectors for ionizing radiation, demonstrating the huge potential that this wide band gap semiconductor bears.The uniqueness of diamond, the promise it bears as an unusual material for specific electronic devices and the difficulties related to its application are briefly reviewed. Reference is given to some recent reviews published on specific topics and to some of the more recent breakthroughs and potential applications in the field.

Study of CVD diamond layers with amorphous carbon admixture by Raman scattering spectroscopy

“…In such case one can expect that for polycrystalline CVD diamond, the contributions to Raman spectrum from both sp 3 and sp 2 hybridizations of amorphous carbon should be observed in the Raman spectra except the diamond Raman line. The resulting Raman spectrum of CVD diamond film, in comparison to pure diamond, has more complicated character as it is shown in Fig.…”

“…Due to its well-known high hardness, singular strength, high thermal conductivity, low coefficient of thermal expansion, chemical inertness, excellent optical transparency, and semiconductor properties, it has attracted intensive scientific studies and technological interest worldwide [2,3]. * E-mail: miroslaw.szybowicz@put.poznan.pl Diamond is chemically inert and does not react with common acids even at elevated temperatures.…”

Development of large area polycrystalline diamond detectors for fast timing application of high-energy heavy-ion beams

“…There has been a large amount of developmental research work during the last few decades focussing on polycrystalline chemical vapour deposited (pcCVD) synthetic diamond material [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21], which are commercially available in samples of large area. Due to the high electron and hole saturation velocity of 10 7 cm/s, the material has been proven to provide a very good timing resolution (e.g.…”

Theoretical Studies of the Adsorption and Migration Behavior of Boron Atoms on Hydrogen-Terminated Diamond (001) Surface

“…BDD films have been used in a number of electrochemical applications, such as water treatment, electro-synthesis, electro-catalysis, electro-analytical measurement, electrochemical energy technology, and biosensing [1][2][3][4][5][6], and BDD depositions have also been employed to prepare smooth coatings for machining carbon fiber reinforced plastics [7]. BDD film-coated rectangular-hole-shaped drawing dies have been discovered to not only display much better adhesion and wear-resistant properties, but also have higher initial surface smoothness before polishing and relatively lower film hardness, making it liable to be polished to the appropriate surface smoothness [8].…”