Buy Online: Element Six Participates in Major European Research Programme Developing Materials for Extreme Environments
Element Six is involved with a major EU-funded research programme aimed at the development of new materials for electronic devices and sensors that can operate in extreme conditions and harsh environments, especially high temperature and internal device high electric field. The programme, dubbed MORGaN - Materials for Robust Gallium Nitride - is a three year project costing euros 9.2 million that involves 23 companies and universities in 11 countries.
Funded under the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme, one of the project’s main aims is to combine synthetic diamond with gallium nitride to create the next generation of high performance sensors and electronic devices for extreme environments. The idea is to take advantage of the excellent physical and electronic properties of diamond and gallium nitride (GaN) based heterostructures.
MORGaN is bringing together groups of specialists in materials, electronics and metallization for processing, through to device design modelling and packaging. In relation to diamond, it is the material’s excellent thermal conductivity that makes it useful as a heat spreader in these new device designs. So one area of study will be the use of the III-Nitride material system together with polycrystalline diamond-based substrates to act as heat spreading layers. Diamond has excellent thermal conductivity, reaching 2,400 Wm-1K-1 for single crystal diamond, which is the highest of any other solid material. “Diamond is potentially the ultimate substrate for many high temperature or extreme power applications,” notes Geoffrey Scarsbrook, R&D operations manager for Element Six Technologies.
Element Six is a pioneer in the development of CVD diamond technology and the leading supplier of all types of polycrystalline CVD diamond and its research laboratory in the UK was the first to demonstrate the synthesis of electronic device quality, single crystal CVD diamond. One of its key roles in the MORGaN programme will be to supply the consortium with diamond-based wafers suitable for III-N epitaxy.
“Element Six will use its expertise to further develop and optimise the synthesis and primary processing of silicon/polycrystalline diamond composite wafers,” says Steve Coe, general manager of Element Six Technologies. In addition, E6 will develop, and provide to the consortium, specially prepared polycrystalline and single crystal diamond surfaces to aid III-N epitaxial growth. “The diamond synthesis and processing technologies being used by E6 to undertake MORGaN are truly ‘state of the art’ and currently a unique capability globally,” adds Steve Coe.
Any new electronic sensors and devices arising from MORGaN are expected to function under harsh conditions that cannot be tolerated by conventional silicon-based devices. Harsh environments can be external ones such as high temperature or pressure, or they can be internal to the device, as a consequence of power dissipation under high current flow at high bias. These environments need new semiconductor materials which are stable, especially at high temperature and have substrate and package combinations that enable rapid heat extraction or capability to withstand high temperature. The hope is that the project will therefore lead to the demonstration of innovative composite substrates and combining the excellent thermal behaviours of polycrystalline diamond to the electrical efficiency of GaN compounds.
About Element Six
Element Six is the world’s leading supplier of diamond and diamond-like supermaterials. It is the frontrunner in the development of synthetic diamond and novel related engineering materials spanning for example optical, mechanical, thermal and electronic thermal properties for application in such diverse industries as aerospace, automotive, chemical and construction, defence, energy, medical, telecommunications and technologies. With a turnover approaching US$500m and almost 3,600 employees, Element Six has established production and processing plants in China, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, South Africa, Ukraine and the UK supported by a global distribution network.
For more information:
Steve Coe
Element Six Ltd
King’s Ride Park, Ascot
Berks, SL5 8BP
Tel: + 44 1344 638200
www.e6.com
For more information about the MORGaN project visit www.morganproject.eu/