News

11 February 2009

 

Element Six provides CVD diamond technology for MORGaN programme

Supplier of CVD diamond and diamond-like materials, Element Six of Ascot, UK says it is involved in a project to develop new materials for electronic devices and sensors.

Funded under the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme, the Materials for Robust Gallium Nitride (MORGaN) project will last three years, cost EUR 9.2m, and bring together 23 companies and universities in 11 countries. One of the project’s main aims will be to combine synthetic diamond with gallium nitride (GaN) to create next-generation, high performance sensors and electronic devices for extreme environments.  

Diamond’s excellent thermal conductivity (reaching 2,400 Wm-1K-1 for single crystal diamond) makes it useful as a heat spreader in these new device designs, so one area of study will be the use of the III-Nitride material system together with polycrystalline diamond-based substrates to act as heat spreading layers.  

“Diamond is potentially the ultimate substrate for many high temperature or extreme power applications,” says Geoffrey Scarsbrook, R&D operations manager for Element Six Technologies.

Element Six says it is a pioneer in the development of CVD diamond technology and that its research laboratory in the UK was the first to demonstrate the synthesis of electronic device quality, single crystal CVD diamond.  One of the firm’s key roles in the MORGaN project will be to supply the consortium with diamond-based wafers suitable for III-N epitaxy.

“Element Six will use its expertise to further develop and optimise the synthesis and primary processing of silicon/polycrystalline diamond composite wafers,” says Steve Coe, general manager of Element Six Technologies.  

In addition, Element Six will develop and supply specially prepared polycrystalline and single crystal diamond surfaces to aid III-N epitaxial growth.  New electronic sensors and devices arising from MORGaN are expected to function under harsh conditions that cannot be tolerated by conventional silicon-based devices. Harsh environments can be external ones such as high temperature or pressure, or they can be internal to the device, as a consequence of power dissipation under high current flow at high bias. These environments need new semiconductor materials that are stable, especially at high temperature and have substrate and package combinations that enable rapid heat extraction or capability to withstand high temperature.  

See related item:

INEX to provide DMD with processing technology for diamond-based MESFET development

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Visit: www.morganproject.eu