PECVD (Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition) diamond thin films for research instrumentation. Final report, 9 January 1987-30 April 1988

Natural diamond exhibits several properties that indicate its utility as a semiconducting material. It is environmentally robust and an excellent thermal conductor, characteristics which would allow it to operate under temperature and radiation conditions that would render useless more commonly used semiconductors such as silicon and GaAs. In addition, it has optical properties that suggest its use as a short-wavelength turnable laser. Several materials issues have prevented the development of diamond as a semiconductor in device, laser, and related applications. Natural diamond is expensive to obtain in useful sizes. The impurity and defect levels can vary dramatically from one sample to the next, making potential product reproducibility difficult to achieve. It is unavailable in thin film form. High-pressure synthetic diamond is also unsuitable for the foregoing applications because of impurities and inability to produce thin films.