Abstract
Diamond has the most desirable thermal properties for applications in electronics. In principle, diamond is the best candidate for integration with other materials for thermal management due to its high thermal conductivity. Therefore, if low thermal boundary resistance can be developed between diamond and the semiconductor material, it would most effectively channel the heat away from areas of high power dissipation. Recent advancement of N-polar GaN in high power RF and conventional power electronics motivated us to study the diamond/Si3N4/GaN interface to understand how effectively the heat can be transferred from the GaN channel to diamond heat-sink. Prior studies showed that there are challenges in incorporating diamond with GaN while still maintaining the high crystalline quality necessary to observe the desirable thermal properties of the material. Therefore, in this study we investigated the influence of methane concentration (0.5–6%), gas pressure (40–90 Torr), sample surface temperature (600–850 °C), and growth duration (1~5 h) on polycrystalline diamond growth. The diamond/Si3N4/GaN interface looks abrupt with no signs of etching of the GaN for the samples with methane concentration above 2%, pressures up to 90 Torr, and temperatures < 850 °C, allowing for incorporation of diamond close to the active region of the device. This approach contrasts with most prior research, which require surface roughening and thick growth on the backside.
Highlights
Diamond has a number of excellent properties such as the highest known thermal conductivity (TC), wide energy bandgap, high electron and hole mobility, widest optical transparency window, and chemical inertness, which make it a unique solid-state material and desirable for several technological applications
The diamond/Si3 N4 /gallium nitride (GaN) interface looks abrupt with no signs of etching of the GaN for the samples with methane concentration above 2%, pressures up to 90 Torr, and temperatures < 850 ◦ C, allowing for incorporation of diamond close to the active region of the device
In addition to high TC, diamond is electrically insulating compared with other high TC materials, which makes diamond a better choice for low dielectric loss needed applications such as gallium nitride (GaN)-based power devices [2]
Summary
Diamond has a number of excellent properties such as the highest known thermal conductivity (TC), wide energy bandgap, high electron and hole mobility, widest optical transparency window, and chemical inertness, which make it a unique solid-state material and desirable for several technological applications. The high TC provides strong motivation for integrating diamond into electronic devices for thermal management purposes [1]. Gallium nitride is a wide-bandgap semiconductor which has shown great promise in high power, high frequency, and high temperature applications for electronics. This is due to favorable material properties such as large breakdown field, high electron saturation velocity, and high charge concentration [3,4,5]. Most of the research in the field of electronic devices is focused on the Ga-polar direction of the GaNh (GaN[0001])
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