Japanese researchers craft novel diamond semiconductor

Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have used a vapor deposition process to synthesize an n-type semiconducting 001 oriented diamond substrate. In addition the team has produced ultraviolet emission with from a light-emitting p-n junction in the material.

This is a significant achievement because it removes a restriction on substrate orientation, which had previously been a bottleneck in the development of electron devices derived from diamond semiconductors, the organization claimed.

While the p-type diamond semiconductor material has been synthesized irrespective of the substrate orientation, n-type material has previously only been made in 111-oriented substrates.

In the present study, the 001 n-type diamond semiconductor has been synthesized through the use of a microwave plasma CVD process using methane as source gas and doping with phosphorus atoms.

- Peter Clarke

EE Times