Thin Film Diamond Field Effect Transistors For High Power Applications

Abstract

AbstractEarly predictions that diamond would be a suitable material for high performance, high power devices were not supported by the characteristics of diodes and field effect transistors (FETs) fabricated on boron doped (p-type) thin film material. In this paper commercially accessible polycrystalline thin film diamond has been turned p-type by the incorporation of near surface hydrogen. Schottky diodes and metal-semiconductor FETs (MESFETs) have been fabricated using this approach which display unprecedented performance levels; diodes with a rectification ratio > 106, leakage currents < l nA, no indication of reverse bias breakdown at 100V and an ideality factor of 1.1 have been made. Simple MESFET structures that are capable of withstanding VDS values of 100V with low leakage and current saturation (pinch-off) characteristics have also been fabricated. Predictions based upon experiments performed on these devices suggest that optimised device structures will be capable of operation at power levels up to 20 W/mm, implying that thin film diamond may after all be an interesting material for power applications.