Electronic and Semiconductor Applications

With its excellent semiconductor properties, good radiation and temperature resistance, and high thermal conductivity, diamond is the ideal material for many semiconductor applications such as high-power and high-frequency transistors and cold cathodes, or in the harsh environment found in internal-combustion and jet engines. With the advent of CVD diamond, it is now possible to take advantage of these properties. 

Diamond, however, is not the universal semiconductor panacea it is an /nd/recfbandgapsemiconductor and does not lase. In addition, present semiconductor materials such as silicon and gallium arsenide are solidly entrenched with a weU-established technology and competing with them will not be an easy task. CVD diamond will also compete with silicon carbide which has also an excellent potential as a high-performance semiconductor material and is considerably easier and cheaper to produce.  

Many problems must be solved before practical, reliable, and cost-effective diamond semiconductor devices become available. Yet, the prospects are good, particularly if epitaxial single-crystal or highly oriented polycrystalline diamond can be effectively deposited.1 I 

Preliminary developments of semiconductor devices based on CVD diamond are already under way including field-effect transistors (FET) which are proving superiorto silicon devices and are characterized by high-power handling capacity, low saturation resistance, and excellent high-frequency performance.P8] 

---