AsianScientist (Apr. 19, 2018) – Researchers from Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) have successfully made a circuit using hydrogenated diamond (H-diamond) as the semiconductor. These results, described in Applied Physics Letters, could lead to more efficient power conversion.
Silicon’s material properties make it a poor choice for circuits in high-power, high-temperature and high-frequency electronic devices. When power generators like windmills and solar panels transfer electricity to homes, businesses and the power grid, they lose almost ten percent of the generated power.
“For the high-power generators, diamond is more suitable for fabricating power conversion systems with a small size and low power loss,” said study first author Dr. Liu Jiangwei.
Using H-diamond, the NIMS researchers fabricated a NOR logic circuit, which gives an output only when both inputs are zero. The circuit consisted of two metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs), which are used in many electronic devices, and in digital integrated circuits, like microprocessors. In 2013, Liu and his colleagues were the first to report fabricating an E-mode H-diamond MOSFET.
When the researchers heated the circuit to 300 degrees Celsius, it functioned correctly, but failed at 400 degrees. They suspect that the higher temperature caused the MOSFETs to break down. Higher temperatures may be achievable, however, as another group reported successful operation of a similar H-diamond MOSFET at 400 degrees Celsius. For comparison, the maximum operation temperature for silicon-based electronic devices is about 150 degrees.
In the future, the researchers plan to improve the circuit’s stability at high temperatures by altering the oxide insulators and modifying the fabrication process. They hope to construct H-diamond MOSFET logic circuits that can operate above 500 degrees Celsius and at 2.0 kilovolts.
“Diamond is one of the candidate semiconductor materials for next-generation electronics, specifically for improving energy savings,” said Professor Yasuo Koide, a director at NIMS and co-author on the paper. “Of course, in order to achieve industrialization, it is essential to develop inch-sized single-crystal diamond wafers and other diamond-based integrated circuits.”
The article can be found at: Liu et al. (2018) Annealing Effects on Hydrogenated Diamond NOR Logic Circuits.
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Source: American Institute of Physics; Photo: Pixabay.
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