All about diamond as an advanced semiconductor material in 10 points.

At the intersection of the advanced technologies in the semiconductor industry, DIAMFAB company develops its synthetic diamond innovative solution for high power and harsh environment applications.

Diamond is made of carbon

The atoms of carbon which constitute the diamond are arranged following the face centered cubic crystal structure with half of its tetrahedral sites fulfilled which gives to diamond a great part of its superlative properties.

Diamond can be synthesized in laboratory

Two processes are used to synthesize it : HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) or MPCVD (Microwave Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition) which we use at DIAMFAB.

Diamond can be doped to enhance or reduce its conductivity

Diamond can be doped p-type with boron (B) or n-type with nitrogen (N) or phosphorus (P). DIAMFAB expertise is focused on boron and nitrogen doping.

Doping by implantation is inefficient on diamond

That’s why at DIAMFAB we do in-situ doping: we incorporate the doping elements during the growth.

Diamond is superconducting at low temperature (-269°C)

Thanks to our expertise on high concentrate doping, DIAMFAB’s wafers can be used for superconducting applications.

Diamond is a wide band gap material

Its band gap is 5.5 eV, five times greater than the silicon one at 1.1 eV. It results in a small number of intrinsic carriers at ambient temperature. This property classifies it as an insulating material from its discovery until we were able to dope it in the 80’s.

Diamond is a better heat dissipator than metals

Its thermal conductivity is around 2200 W/m.K or 5 times copper conductivity.

An exceptional breakdown field

Diamond’s breakdown field is at 10 MV/cm, 30 times greater than Silicon’s, which allows diamond’s diodes and transistors to withstand voltages of thousands of volts in the OFF state.

A huge current thanks to fast charges carriers

The holes and the electrons in diamond have a respective mobility of 2000 cm2/V.s and 1000 cm2/V.s which allow to reduce the joule effect losses while the diamond’s diodes and transistors are in ON state.

.

Diamond is the hardest semiconductor

With a Young modulus of 1000 GPa the diamond is by far the hardest semiconductor.

 

Send us a message

6 + 12 =

Contact

25 avenue des Martyrs
38042 Grenoble Cedex 9
FRANCE

contact@diamfab.com