How good is diamond as a wide bandgap semiconductor?

Introducing diamond

Diamond is characterised by its exceptional hardness, robustness and its optical and thermal properties; pre-eminent as a gemstone and an industrial tool. Natural diamond has an inherent variability and scarcity that limit its use in engineering applications. Developments in synthesis processes have enabled the production of consistently engineered synthetic diamond; firstly in the 1950s using high pressure and high temperature and later in the 1980s using chemical vapour deposition to produce the exceptional covalent crystal diamond. The modern industrial world consumes approximately 800 tonnes of synthetic diamond, around 150 times the amount of natural diamond mined as gemstones.

The emergence of diamond thin film technology has provided the spur for research in to new applications of this material including tooling, optics, thermal management and electronics. As a semiconductor, diamond has some attractive properties and also some associated problems. The balance between these benefits and drawbacks will decide where the Electronic Engineer will employ diamond. The sophistication of silicon semiconductor technology in terms of wafer manufacture, device fabrication and system design will undoubtedly ensure its dominant use in microprocessors at the man-machine interface well into the next century. However, the growing research into wide band-gap semiconductors is suggesting that materials, other than silicon, will be exploited in peripheral applications at the machine-environment interface. In that context diamond might be an ideal semiconductor material for high power, igh frequency or high temperature applications.

Diamond's properties derive from its structure; tetrahedral covalent bonds between an atom and its four nearest neighbours, linked in a cubic lattice. This strongly bonded, tightly packed, dense and rigid structure gives rise to its outstanding properties. Manipulating the impact of defects and the synthesis conditions means that material scientists have been able to optimise and tailor the remarkable properties of diamond for a wide range of applications.

Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing (Xiamen) Co.,Ltd is an advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology based joint venture company invested from the Korea, China and Singapore, registered in the city of Xiamen, China. We have equipped with advanced semiconductor manufacturing tools including MPCVD, MOCVD, LPCVD, HVPE and high temperature PVD to produce high quality Diamond wafer and AlN template on various substrate including Si, sapphire, and polished diamond. Our mission is to be the most advanced compound semiconductor company in the global market, contributing to the related technology development. We have strong R&D team and actively collaborate with best research group around the world. Currently, we are providing the thermal grade polycrystalline diamond, which can be used as an effective diamond heat sink aims to solve the heat issue in temperature sensitive device, such as power devices, lasers and avalanche photodiodes etc. We also provides wafer scale polished diamond with sub-nanometer RMS surface roughness, which might be suitable for the integration of GaN, GaO and AlN epilayers and devices on Diamond via direct bonding or heteoepitaxy.