Dawn Of The Diamond Age?

Wiesel Werkstätte pointed out this article in Nature about recent advances in the use of thin diamond films as semiconductors, a tantalizing possibility which has been thwarted thus far by the overlapping, misaligned structures left by the process of deposting diamond in a film. From the article: "Matthias Schreck and his colleagues from the University of Augsburg have found a way to eliminate the grain boundaries. They have not removed misalignments entirely, but they have restricted them to narrow bands that no longer isolate one crystalline region from its neighbours."

Comments

Uses

[maraist]

It doesn't look too incredibly exciting. First of all, the process by which the diamond is made is substantially different and more flawed than silicon wafers (annealing liquid silicon verses condensation of gasious carbon). They say they've merely discovered a method that reduces condensation disturbances to a usable state.. But when we're designing gate-widths that are only a couple dozen atoms wide, these disturbances will probably be monumental.

The main advantage of these are high temperature (500C instead of 150C with Silicon). One theoretical advantage is running higher voltages at hotter temperatures with less breakdown. So you could over-clock these babby's. :) Another theoretical advantage is the diamond structure should be denser than silicon, which could mean smaller absolute minimum gate lenghts.

One issue will have to be the metalergic process by which copper attaches to the carbon. It took hundreds of small miracles to find the right intermediate layers to get copper to stick to silicon; will it take just as long for carbon?

Don't know if better or worse, just know that it'll be different. And from the looks of it, more expensive

Instead of a ring for my girlfriend....

[AntiPasto]

Does this mean I can use my 3 months salary towards a computer? ;)

----

Covering monuments with diamond film...

[stroppy]

In one of Arthur C. Clarkes '2001' series (the end of 2010, I think), the decay of historical monuments has been halted by covering them in a film of diamond atoms.

This idea has stayed with me for years.

*Sigh* imagine Paris, in the springtime, the Tower and Arch sparkling like diamond in the morning sun...

They don't know half of it

[Deanasc]

I just did my senior thesis on synthetic diamond. The technology coming down the line is incredible.

The Russians are doing gem quality diamonds 4 carets every 72 hours. They're also going to do LCD monitors that use almost no power (yet are bright and vivid without backlighting) out of diamond as well.

Simple doping already gives np switching with rough diamond films such as the one shown in the article.

So don't bother buying a diamond engagement ring if you're getting married. In a decade they'll be free with a can of motor oil at Wal-mart.