Toward applications of diamond in power electronics infrastructure for a low-carbon society

[Keio Spintronics Network - Diamond Research Laboratory , AIST] The AISTs Diamond Research Laboratory is studying diamond, which has superior properties compared with widely used semiconductor materials such as silicon. The Laboratory is also doing fundamental research to discover features unique to isotopic semiconductors, by synthesizing diamond, for which a large isotopic effect is expected. Q. The interesting thing about diamond is that it has not just one, but lots of good features, and many unexpected things are emerging. Because diamond is a good conductor of heat, additional benefits emerge. For example, diamond SAW device had benefit of high power durability. These are some of the interesting things about diamond. The Diamond Research Laboratory is using carbon 12 and carbon 13 isotopes, which are carbon atoms with different mass, in thin films formed by gas-phase synthesis using microwave plasma CVD. In this way, the Center has achieved a world first that overturns conventional wisdom, by successful homo junction band-engineering in materials consisting only of diamond. This makes it possible to use diamond material to create a superlattice structure. Such a structure exhibits top performance in terms of properties such as thermal conductivity, breakdown field, electron mobility, and band-gap. This achievement has opened the way to the development of super-fast devices and quantum devices. Q. Actually, the difference in band-gap between diamond made using carbon ...