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2003 Semicond. Sci. Technol. 18 S59

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INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS PUBLISHING SEMICONDUCTOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Semicond. Sci. Technol. 18 (2003) S59S66 PII: S0268-1242(03)34363-9

Diamond diodes and transistors

A Aleksov1, A Denisenko1, M Kunze1, A Vescan1, A Bergmaier2,
G Dollinger2, W Ebert1 and E Kohn1
1
Department of Electron Devices and Circuits, University of Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 45,
89081 Ulm, Germany
2
Department E12, Technische Universitaet Muenchen, 85748 Garching, Germany

Received 28 February 2002

Published 7 February 2003
Online at stacks.iop.org/SST/18/S59

Abstract
Over the past few years a variety of diamond electron devices have been
fabricated, analysed and simulated. This includes Schottky diodes on
boron-doped p+ diamond substrates, boron/nitrogen pn-junction diodes,
bipolar transistors based on this pn-junction and field effect transistors
(FETs) with boron delta-doped channels and hydrogen-related surface
conductive layers. Many of the fabricated devices considered here represent
the current state-of-the-art in this field. This includes the operation of
diamond Schottky diodes at temperatures of up to 1000 C, as well as
diamond FET devices with a cut-off frequency of 30 GHz and channel
current densities of 300 mA mm1. Simulations show that diamond boron
delta-doped FETs might yield an RF-output power density of up to
30 W mm1.

1. Introduction
The interest in diamond as a material for electronic
applications was triggered by the unique physical/chemical
properties of this material as well as the capability to grow
diamond homoepitaxially with low dislocation density by
microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition (MPCVD).
Due to the large bandgap and the high hole mobility diamond
is predestined for the devices with high power handling
capability at microwave frequencies and for operation at high
temperatures and in harsh environments. In this paper, we
focus on such diamond electron devices developed in our
laboratory leaving aside the potential for sensing applications.
Recently, diamond electron devices have made steady
progress in meeting the expectations set by the ideal material
properties; however, they perform still well below estimated
limits. Thus, the devices presented need still to be understood
as proof of concept structures pinpointing towards further
development.
This is especially the case with bipolar transistors (BJTs)
using boron/nitrogen pn-junctions since the nitrogen donor
level has an activation energy of 1.7 eV [1] and nitrogen-
doped layers, therefore, represent a lossy dielectric with high
sheet resistance. However, despite this serious drawback BJT
operation at room temperature (RT) was observed pointing out
the potential of this device, if a shallow donor can be found.
Otherwise, diamond electronic devices are unipolar
devices utilizing p-type hole conduction. Since the hole
mobility in diamond can be as high as p = 1800 cm2 V1 s1
[2] this fact is not detrimental. Two methods are available in
order to establish a p-type conductivity. The first is by boron
doping, allowing the formation of various doping profiles and
concentrations. The acceptor level of boron is 0.38 eV above
the valence band edge. However, the activation energy of
the conductivity drops to zero as the doping level approaches
1020 cm3 [3].
The other method utilizes diamond hydrogen-related
surface conductive layers. Such layers show a room-
temperature-activated p-type conduction in a near surface
region [4].
Devices fabricated on boron-doped layers are Schottky
diodes, metalsemiconductor FETs (MESFETs) and junction
FETs (JFETs). The fabricated Schottky diodes presented here
were the first diamond devices showing a clear breakdown
behaviour allowing for the first time the extraction of the
breakdown field in a diamond CVD layer for electronic
applications [5].
The diamond JFETs discussed below utilize boron
delta-doped channels with enhanced activation at moderate
temperatures [6]. The devices have been operated in a
temperature range from 20 K to 473 K. Operation down to
20 K was possible due to reduced activation energies [4]. In
the FET gate diode advantage was drawn from the high built-
in voltage of the boron/nitrogen pn-junction. Here, the high
activation energy of nitrogen is not detrimental to the device
operation. For the first time diamond FET devices utilizing
recessed gates for reduction of parasitic resistances and with

0268-1242/03/030059+08$30.00 2003 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK S59

A Aleksov et al

C H4+ H2 + N2 1000C
Waveguide 10 3

RF-Source
10 1 700C

J (A/cm2)
(ASTEX 5000TM )
10 -1

Plasma 500C
Substrate Feed-through 10 -3

10 -5
R.T.
Boron rod as a solid-state
10 -7
doping source: 300 m -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
boron rod on W-kernel
V (V)
Thermocouple
Figure 2. Operation of diamond Schottky diode from RT to
Figure 1. Diamond MPCVD system with a solid B-doping source 1000 C.
(B-rod).
0
gate-field plates for enhanced breakdown fields were
fabricated and simulated [7]. = 1.7eV
-10
Regarding hydrogen-related surface conductive layers,
diamond MESFETs were fabricated, analysed and modelled
[8, 9]. These devices show high output currents, high break- ln(I0 /T 2) -20
down voltages and high transconductances resulting in high
cut-off frequencies in the microwave regime for devices with
sub-m gate lengths below 0.5 m. -30

2. Technology
The active layers are grown by microwave plasma chemical
vapour deposition (MPCVD). The methane concentration in
the gas phase ranges from 0.125% to 1.5%, resulting in growth
rates from 8 nm h1 to 450 nm h1. The low growth rate is
used for nanometre-precise growth of thin high quality
diamond layers. Figure 1 shows the MPCVD set-up used
in these experiments.
In situ boron doping is obtained by using a solid boron
doping source. Here, a boron rod (with a thin tungsten kernel)
is introduced into the plasma during growth. This doping
technique enables the formation of steep doping profiles and
also the growth of heavily boron-doped metal-like diamond
with NA > 1020 cm3 [10], where the activation energy reaches
zero [3]. The chemical doping concentrations were determined
by elastic recoil detection (ERD) measurements.
Nitrogen-doped diamond layers are obtained by
introducing N2 into the gas mixture [6]. The concentration
of nitrogen in the gas phase is process dependent in between
1% and 5%, resulting in nitrogen concentrations in diamond of
about 1 1018 cm3 to 5 1018 cm3 as determined by ERD. down to 200 nm [7, 12].
The electrical analysis of devices with nitrogen-doped layers
confirmed that most of the chemical doping concentration acts
as a paramagnetic donor.
Diamond layers are structured by selective area epitaxy
(SAE) or by reactive ion etching (RIE) in an RF-plasma
of an Ar/O2 mixture [11]. Selective area epitaxy is used
mainly for the definition of the heavily boron-doped contact
regions. SiO2 layers are used as mask, since without bias
enhanced nucleation (BEN) diamond grows only on diamond
and not on SiO2. The SiO2 layer is patterned by using a CF4
process.
-40
1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5
1000/T (K-1)
Figure 3. Barrier height of a quasi-metallic highly p-type-doped
Si Schottky contact to diamond.
Reactive ion etching is mostly used for device isolation.
In recent device structures RIE is also used to etch the gate
recess trench. The etch rate and the morphology of the etched
surfaces depend mainly on the Ar/O2 ratio. This ratio varies
from 0.3 to 10, with an etch rate varying from 1.5 nm min1 to
35 nm min1. Small etch rates are used for nanometre-precise
etching, which is necessary to adjust the depth of the gate
recess trench with nanometre-precision close to the channel.
In general, structures are patterned by optical (UV)
lithography, both for mesa and contacts. For the sub-m gates
e-beam lithography is used with a standard three-layer resist
process obtaining T-gate metal structures with gate lengths
Contact metals are deposited by sputtering with an ion
beam source or by evaporation, the evaporation being thermal,
or by e-beam. The contacts are finally patterned by wet
chemical etching or the lift-off technique.
Since oxygen-terminated devices have a pinned surface
potential at 1.7 eV above the valence band [13] ohmic contacts
need to be tunnelling contacts, which can be realized by
using heavily doped diamond contact areas (NA > 1020 cm3)
[14]. On hydrogen-terminated surfaces the surface potential is
unpinned and therefore contact properties (ohmic or rectifying)
depend on the metal work function difference to diamond [4].

S60

thickness of the homoepitaxial
diamond layer
-2
10
10 -3
10 -4
10 -5
I (A)
10 -6 0.5 m 1.5 m
-7
10 VBR = 14V VBR = 39V
-8
10
-9
10
-10
10
-20 0 20 40 60
reverse bias
Figure 4. Breakdown behaviour of Schottky contacts to diamond (inset shows the breakdown-field strength); for details on the extrapolation
of the breakdown field see [3].
3. Diodes
3.1. Schottky diodes
Diodes for technical applications need to show high blocking
voltages and a low forward loss, i.e. a low series resistance.
Therefore, diamond pn-diodes are not technologically relevant
for such applications. However, lightly boron-doped (NA

1017 cm3) Schottky diodes on oxygen-terminated surfaces
show good performance at high temperatures, i.e. acceptable
forward currents and high breakdown voltages at reverse bias.
In order to enable high-temperature operation of these
diodes a high-temperature stable contact metallization was
developed. This contact system has several layers. The actual
Schottky contact to diamond is formed by quasi-metallic Si
obtaining a temperature stable interface [15]. The temperature
stability of the contact is further improved by incorporation of
nitrogen and carbon. Such contacts show no change of the
Schottky barrier height (SBH) up to 700 C [16]. However,
due to the relatively high resistivity of the quasi-metallic Si this
layer has to be as thin as possible and the contacts need a low
resistance cap layer such as Au. In order to avoid alloying of
Au and Si at elevated temperatures a diffusion barrier layer is
necessary between these layers, such as W:Si:N. Diodes using
this contact metal stack have operated up to 1000 C [16, 17] as
seen in figure 2. Plotted in a linear scale almost no leakage is
observed up to 800 C for V reverse < 20 V. This measurement
has been conducted in vacuum in order to protect the device
from oxidation, the contact was without the Au overlayer, due
to diffusion barrier failure at temperatures above 800 C.
From the Arrenius plot of the saturation current I0 the
SBH is extrapolated to approximately 1.7 eV (figure 3), a
value in good agreement with other Schottky contact metal
systems on oxygen-terminated diamond [10]. The reverse
diode current shows very low activation up to 500 C, most
likely due to the stabilized interface, possibly passivating
defects. Nevertheless, the ideality factor is dominated by this
current and approaches n
1.1 only for high temperatures.
Thus, the reverse current is still well above the theoretical limit,
assuming that it originates from the crystal defects acting as
Diamond diodes and transistors
103 Ebr = 2x106 V/cm
EBR 0 r
2
VBr (V)
VBR =
102 2qNA
fit
NA (cm-3)
101
1016 1017 1018
3 m 7 m
VBR = 82V VBR = 192V
80 100 120 140 160 180 200
V(V)
highly doped small surface area clusters [18]. Such diamond
diodes also show a clear breakdown behaviour at reverse bias
as seen in figure 4. Thus, it was possible to obtain a first rough
estimation of the breakdown field of CVD diamond films with
EBR = 2 106 V cm1 [3], which is however still well below
the value for natural diamond.
3.2. Boron/nitrogen pn-junction diodes and the diamond BJT
Due to the high activation energy of the nitrogen donor,
in the past, nitrogen-doped layers were never considered
to be technically relevant. However, studies on junctions
between boron- and nitrogen-doped diamond layers clearly
show that despite its deep level the fabrication of abrupt pn-
junctions with a high built-in voltage is feasible [1921].
The pn-junctions and the BJTs were fabricated on heavily
boron-doped HTHP single crystals (Sumitomo). The junctions
were fabricated entirely from epitaxially grown layers.
The pn-junction properties were studied by the
temperature-dependent analysis of the forward and reverse
current characteristics (I V ) and by RT capacitancevoltage
(CV ) measurements. The I V characteristics of a pn-
junction diode are shown in figure 5. The curves in figure 5
show that in the forward direction the diode can be fitted with
the analytical model for a pn-junction with a temperature-
dependent series resistance. This fit is used to estimate
the specific resistance of the n-layer and the temperature
dependence of the saturation current density JS extrapolated
from small currents. At RT the specific resistivity of the n-
layer is extremely high n = 10.8 G cm. From the Arrenius
plot shown in figure 6, JS was found to have an activation
energy of 3.8 eV. This value is expected, if the energy level of
the nitrogen donor is taken as the position of the Fermi level
EF in the n-doped part, EA = 3.8 eV = 5.51.7 eV = EG
(EC ED) [22].
This result indicates that at the diamond boron/nitrogen-
doped interface indeed a pn-junction is formed and this can be
confirmed by CV measurements. Here, the transition of the
capacitance from the space-charge to the diffusion-dominated
S61
A Aleksov et al

10-4 400C
NT Rb(T)
G 50 nm p+ emitter
k p-
200C
10-6
Current, (A)

T, (C): =
230 nm NT base
400

10-8 200 20C

p- collector
320 nm
20
fit:
10-10
p+ subcollector (diamond substrate)
q(V IRb (T ))
I = J s Aexp 1
kT
reverse bias forward bias Figure 7. Cross section of a diamond pnp-BJT structure with n-type
10-12 base using deep nitrogen donor NT.
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30
Voltage, (V) The experiments show that operation of diamond
Figure 5. IV characteristics of a diamond nitrogen/boron pnp-BJTs is possible even with a nitrogen-doped base;
pn-junction diode: Rb, series resistance; solid line, fit of the forward however, due to the high base resistance the operation is limited
diode characteristics after the equation shown as an inset. to the dc mode, small currents and moderate temperatures.
Further improvement depends on the employment of a
10-15 shallow donor such as P or S, which has however not been
p- n attempted yet, since doping with P or S is still in a preliminary
EA EC stage of investigation [23, 24].
10-25 ED
JS (A/cm2)

10-35
10-45
slope ~ Eact = 3.8 eV
10-55
1,5 2,0
1000/T (1/K)
Figure 6. Activation energy of the pn-diode saturation current JS;
for details on the extrapolation see [22].
regime is observed at a forward bias of 3.0 V. This value again
is in good agreement with the pn-junction model since it is
close to the value of the built-in voltage V bi assuming that the
Fermi levels in the neutral regions of the diode are pinned at
the partially activated acceptor, i.e. donor level.
By combining two boron/nitrogen pn-junctions a
diamond BJT was fabricated. The device features a nitrogen-
doped base 200 nm thick [22]. The structure of this
diamond BJT is shown in figure 7. From the analysis of
the pn-diodes it is clear that BJT operation will be limited
by high series resistance of the semi-insulating base. The
G-range of the base series resistance RB provokes high
input voltages in order to lower the emitterbase junction
potential. This induces leakage currents in the reverse biased
basecollector diode. Therefore transistor action could only
be observed in the nA-current range. Transistor action was
observed both in common-base as well as in common-emitter
configuration shown in figures 8(a) and (b), respectively.
Nevertheless, the current gain (IC/IB) of the device in common-
base configuration was measured to approximately 200. In
the common-emitter configuration this value was measured to
about 3, mainly because of the higher-base collector reverse
bias which causes a higher leakage current across the junction.
Due to the temperature activation of leakage current transistor
operation was only observed up to 200 C [20].
EV 4. Diamond FETs
EG - ED=3.8 eV
4.1. Boron delta-doped channel JFET
In FETs the channel carrier density is that of the ionized
impurities, whereas the channel depletion will depend both
on ionized and non-ionized impurities [4]. In consequence,
a channel with deep impurities will yield low currents due
to incomplete ionization, but at the same time the electrical
2,5 3,0 3,5 field strength necessary to deplete the channel will be the
same as in the case of full activation. In diamond full
activation of the boron acceptor at RT is obtained only for
doping concentrations NA  1020 cm3. In this case, the
sheet charge and therefore the thickness of the channel are
limited by the breakdown field to pS
3 1013 cm2 and thus
d
3 nm [4] leading to pulse or delta-doped channels. This
represents a challenge for diamond epitaxy, since monolayer
precise growth is necessary. Indeed, it is possible to fabricate
delta-doped layers with a FWHM of approximately 4 nm and
a sheet boron concentration of approximately 1 1014 cm2
as shown in figure 9.
The potential advantages of diamond pn-junctions in
diamond delta-FET structures over Schottky contacts are a
low leakage current and high breakdown as well as the higher
built-in voltage of above 3.0 V [20] compared to the 1.7 V of
the Schottky contact [10]. This leads to a shift in the pinch-off
voltage towards enhancement-mode operation. In the JFET
the gate metal is separated from the channel by an N-doped
layer as shown in figure 10. The N-doped layer is a lossy
dielectric represented by a leakage resistor in parallel to the
dielectric capacitance inserted in between the gate metal and
channel (figure 10). Depending on the layer properties and
dimensions the behaviour can be either resistive or capacitive.
At quasi-dc and as a thick layer with a neutral part between
the interfaces the lossy dielectric will act as a series resistor
to the controlling pn-junction. In this case, the gate length
is given by the length of the n-layer or that part of the
n-layer to which sufficient bias potential can be delivered
by the distributed dielectric leakage resistor. On the other

S62
 Diamond diodes and transistors

8
IE (nA)
80 (a) 70 (b) IB (nA)
6
50 6
60

IC (nA)

IC, (nA)
4
30 4
40
2
2
20 10
0
0 0
-10 0 10 20 30 40 0 10 20 30 40
VCB (V) VEC (V)

Figure 8. BJT dc characteristics: (a) common-base, (b) common-emitter.

-120
25 S D nitrogen doped VG = -10V
substrate
Boron conc. (x1019 cm-3)

ID/wG (mA/mm)
20 -80 LG

gate metal
15 VG = 5V
FWHM = 4 nm
-40
10

5 VG = 30V
0
0 -10 -20
0
20
VD (V)
0 10 30 40 50 60 70

Depth (nm) Figure 11. The dc characteristics of a back-gate JFET at 250 C

(LG = 2 m) after [6].
Figure 9. Boron doping spike in diamond with FWHM = 4 nm,
measured by ERD. VG = - 4 V
-20
nitrogen doped
G cap layer
gate metal S D
-15
ID/wG (mA/mm)

N-doped LG VG = 2 V
RD CD lossy dielectric -10

dD
depeltion CPN
region -5
channel
VG = 22 V
0
0 -5 -10 -15 -20 -25 -30
VD (V)
Figure 10. N-doped lossy dielectric layer between gate metal and
Figure 12. The dc characteristics of a top-gate JFET at 200 C
channel: RD, dielectric leakage resistor; CD, dielectric capacitance;
(LG = 20 m) after [6].
CPN, depletion region capacitance.

hand, a thin layer will be depleted by the interfacial barrier
space-charge layers. Here the lossy dielectric will act as a
capacitor enabling an MIS-like device control by the gate
metal. However the thickness of the N-layer must be sufficient
to suppress tunnelling across the junction.
There are two possibilities to place the gate control
junction; on top as conventionally done or at the channel
back-side.
In figure 11, an FET structure with a back-gate (back-
gate JFET) and the related dc output of a device are shown.
The nitrogen-doped Ib substrate is used as a large area gate
underneath the channel. Due to the large distance between
the gate metal and the channel, the N-layer will act as a series
resistance to the pn-junction. Since a conductivity of the
substrate is needed to sufficiently distribute the potential to the
controlling pn-junction device, operation is expected only at
elevated temperatures and not at RT. Therefore, this structure
can only be used as devices to test the dc behaviour.
Figure 12 depicts another JFET concept where the N-layer
is grown on top of the delta-layer (top-gate JFET). Here
the top N-layer is sufficiently thin and therefore acts as a
capacitor between gate metal and channel and as expected
device operation is observed at RT and even in cooled devices.
In figure 12, the dc characteristics shown were measured at

S63
A Aleksov et al

gate metal gate recess nitrogen-doped layer

metalization
(a) 0 1m
(b)
field plate
Drain Source Source Drain
gate recess
buffer layer
Gate nominally
undoped type Ib diamond substrate
delta-doped
nitrogen - doped layer channel
p+-doped ohmic contact top layer

Figure 13. Diamond recessed gate FET: (a) SEM image, (b) schematic device cross section after [12].

250 C. At this temperature the activation of the boron acceptor -2,0

reached saturation, thus maximizing ID. VG = -4 V LG = 200 nm
In the top-gate JFET structure in figure 12 the pn- T= 300 K
junction overlaps the gate metal to source and drain. Here -1,5
the pn-junction partially depletes the channel by the built- RLoadOpt = 66.7 mm

in potential, thus reducing the drain current as shown by
electrical 2D device simulation. Therefore, it is necessary
to shield the channel outside the gate metal from the pn-
junction and surface depletion making a recessed gate diamond
JFET structure necessary. Also elimination of parallel current
paths beneath the channel is necessary. This can be obtained
by a back-side N-type shielding layer [12]. Here the pn-
junction is close to the delta-channel only in the area of the
gate metal. This maximizes the drain current. The structure
shown in figure 13(a) also utilizes gate field plates to maximize
drain voltage swing as known from Si and SiC power FET
technologies [25, 26]. Figure 13(b) shows a SEM micrograph
of a fabricated recessed gate JFET with gate field plates. The
gate was fabricated by using e-beam lithography to obtain
sub-m gate lengths below 200 nm as shown. The recessed
gate structure presents a technological challenge, since besides
a nanometre-precise growth also nanometre-precise etching
producing smooth etched diamond surfaces with no defects
influencing the regrowth of the N-doped layer is necessary.
Electrical simulation of a recessed gate JFET using the ideal
case of a several monolayer thick doping spike surrounded
by low-doped areas of high mobility [6, 11] has shown the
advantage of this structure and the influence of an additional
field plate [11]. The simulated device showed an RF output
power of about 27 W mm1 [27]. The resulting dc output
characteristics are shown in figure 14.
4.2. Hydrogen surface channel MESFET
Hydrogen-induced surface conductive channels are very
attractive for the fabrication of diamond MESFET devices.
Surface p-type channel devices show extremely low leakage
current and high breakdown voltages. However, there is
an ongoing debate related to the origin of the conductivity
mechanism and several models are under discussion [14, 28,
29]. Single-crystal diamond layers show high sheet charge
densities in the range of 1013 cm2 and carrier mobilities
above 100 cm2 V1 s1 [14, 30]. The conductivity also
seems to follow the surface structure since devices operate
on polycrystalline diamond as well as on single-crystalline
diamond, only here the mobility is lower [28, 31, 32]. Since the
ID (A/mm)
-1,0
Vbreakdown = 130 V
PRFsim = 27 W/mm
-0,5
VG = 3 V
0,0
0 -20 -40 -60 -80 -100 -120 -140
VDS (V)
Figure 14. Simulated dc output characteristics of a recessed gate
JFET (LG = 0.2 m). For details see [27].
surface Fermi level of hydrogenated diamond is unpinned [14],
Schottky barrier heights depend on the metal work function
difference to diamond [14]. Thus, Au is used for ohmic
contacts, while Al gives Schottky contacts with a barrier of
approximately 0.8 eV. However, due to the unpinned surface
Fermi level, besides the gate surface depletion is also sensitive
to adsorbates. Therefore devices on hydrogen-terminated
diamond suffer from instabilities.
Sub-m gate length devices were fabricated by standard
T-gate e-beam lithography as used for InP and GaAs HEMTs.
Figure 15 shows the dc output characteristics of a 200 nm
gate length FET. The maximum drain current reaches above
300 mA mm1 and the maximum drain bias up to 68 V giving
a possible RF output power of up to 3 W mm1. However,
the RF tests of this device were limited to small signal
parameter measurements at low drain current due to unstable
performance at high current levels. The cut-off frequencies
f T and f max were extracted from the current gain plots as
shown in figure 16. Here f max was extracted from both the
maximum available gain plot f max (MAG) and the maximum
unilateral gain f max (U). The maximum values obtained were
f T = 11.5 GHz and f max (MAG) = 31.7 GHz and f max (U) =
40.22 GHz. The high f max/f T ratio of above 3 is related to
the high voltage gain of above 100 obtained from the g m/g DS
ratio. With this value for f max, diamond FET operation may
reach into the millimetre-wave region with even higher cut-off
frequencies expected for shorter gate lengths.

S64
 Diamond diodes and transistors

VG = -3.2V of diamond. At high temperatures it is necessary to shield

-300
diamond from oxidation for operation in normal atmosphere
-250 by passivation. Diamond surface conductive devices are still
plagued by stability problems, which might again be solved by
ID (mA/mm)

-200 proper passivation. On the other hand, the most challenging

devices both with respect to technology and perspective are
-150 diamond delta-doped FETs, where simulation promises an
extraordinary power handling capability.
-100

-50 VG = -0.8 V Acknowledgment

0 The authors wish to thank the German Research Council
0 -2 -4 -6 -8 -10
(Deutsche ForschungsgesellschaftDFG) for supporting this
VD (V) work financially through their contract KO1201/8-1.

Figure 15. DC-output characteristics of a surface-channel FET with

LG = 0.2 m. References
[1] Collins A T 1989 Semicond. Sci. Technol. 4 605
[2] Collins A T and Davies G (ed) 1994 Properties and Growth of
MAG Diamond (London: INSPEC) ISBN 0-85296-875-2 p 273
40 U [3] Borst T H and Weis O 1995 Diam. Relat. Mater. 4 948
H21 [4] Kawarada H 1996 Surf. Sci. Rep. 26 205
H21, MAG, U (dB)

[5] Ebert W, Vescan A, Gluche P, Borst T and Kohn E 1997

30 fmax(MAG) = 31.7 GHz
20
10
fT = 11.5 GHz
0 [9] Gluche P, Aleksov A, Vescan A, Ebert W and Kohn E 1997
0,1 1 10
f (GHz)
Figure 16. Cut-off frequencies of a 0.2 m gate-length surface
channel FET with maximum available gain (MAG), maximum
unilateral gain (U) and current gain (H21) versus frequency. The
cut-off frequencies are obtained by the intersection with the 0 dB
line.
5. Conclusions
Up to the present the development of diamond devices has
made steady progress and many diamond electronic devices
have already met important milestones in their development
process. These milestones include pn-junction operation as
well as the evaluation of diamond BJTs, at present only
based on the boron/nitrogen pn-junctions. Diamond Schottky
diodes on both single- and polycrystalline material have proven
their extraordinary potential for high-temperature electronics.
Diamond FET devices have revealed their ideal potential
in part and recently operation at GHz frequencies could
be demonstrated. Diamond delta-channel JFETs predict
excellent power handling capabilities, but their technology is
still immature. Thus, these results still need to be considered
as proof of concept experiments.
Thus, there is still work remaining for the future to reach
the figures of merit promised by the unique physical properties
Diam. Relat. Mater. 6 329
[6] Aleksov A, Vescan A, Kunze M, Gluche P, Ebert W,
Kohn E, Bergmaier A and Dollinger G 1999 Diam. Relat.
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