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Silicon has been the driving force for electronic products for decades because it is more common, easier to process, and has beneficial electronic properties.

One disadvantage of silicon is that it is easily damaged when exposed to high temperatures, which limits the speed of silicon-based electronic devices.

One possible substitute for silicon is single crystal diamond. Although scientists have recently manufactured single crystal diamond wafers, the usual surface polishing techniques (a prerequisite for electronic products) are a slow and destructive mixture.

Scientists at Osaka University and their collaborators polished single crystal diamond wafers to an almost atomic level of smoothness. This process will help diamond replace at least some silicon components in electronic devices. The results of this research were recently published in "Science Reports."

Diamond is the hardest of all substances and usually does not react with chemical substances. When it is polished with the same hard tool, its surface will be damaged, and the typical polishing chemical reaction is often very slow.

In this study, the team mainly modified the quartz glass surface with the help of improved quartz glass tools and further polished the diamond.

Plasma assisted polishing is an ideal technology for single crystal diamond. The plasma activates the carbon atoms on the diamond surface without destroying the crystal structure, so that the quartz glass plate gently smooths the irregularities on the surface.

Nian Liu, study lead author, Osaka University

The single crystal diamond before polishing contains multiple step-like features, the whole is wavy, and the average root mean square roughness is 0.66μm. After polishing, the morphological defects disappeared and the surface roughness was significantly reduced to 0.4 nm.

Polishing reduces the surface roughness to close to atomic smoothness. There are no scratches on the surface, as seen in the scaife mechanical smoothing method.

Kazuya Yamamura, Senior Author of Osaka University Research

In addition, the research team found that the polished surface remains chemically unchanged. For example, no graphite is detected, which indicates that there is no damaged carbon. The very small amount of nitrogen from the original wafer preparation process is the only impurity found.

Using Raman spectroscopy, the full width at half maximum of the diamond wire in the wafer is the same, and the peak position is almost the same. Other polishing techniques show significant deviations from pure diamonds.

Nian Liu, study lead author, Osaka University

This research progress is helpful to realize high-performance heat sinks and power devices based on single crystal diamond. These technologies will greatly reduce the use of electricity and carbon input, while improving the performance of future electronic devices.

Liu, N., etc. (2020) Non-destructive and high-efficiency plasma-assisted polishing of 20 square millimeter large embedded single crystal diamond substrates. Scientific report. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-76430-6.

Source: https://www.osaka-u.ac.jp/en

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