Nanodiamond Circuits to Work in Extreme Conditions

Scientists at Vanderbilt University have developed computer chips and circuits made up of Diamond film to make them more venerable than their silicon counterparts. Transistors and Logic gates of Diamond have already been developed and they are now working to create complete microelectronic devices with diamond parts. Such devices can operate at higher speed and need less power than silicon made devices.

In journal Electronics Letters, the design of such diamond logic gates have been described. Research Professor and head of team, Jimmy Davidson said that devices using diamond parts will not be expensive as 1 carat of diamond can be fabricated to make around 1 billion such devices. Diamond films used to create these devices are made up chemical vapor deposition technique that uses hydrogen and methane. This form of diamond is much cheaper than conventional diamond used in jewelry. This makes them economical and a tough competitor to silicon parts,according to Spoken Science.

Nanodiamond circuits use technologies of old fashioned vacuum tubes as well as solid state microelectronics. A thin film of diamond is laid down on silicon oxide layer. This facilitates movement of electrons through vacuum between nanodiamond components. This reduces the problem of heating up of normal microelectronics devices as in these types of devices a vacuum movement of electron occurs. Also diamond being the best electron emitter needs much less energy to produce electron beams, which in turn reduced the electricity consumption to operate these devices.

Another major advantage of nanodiamond devices is that such devices are immune to radiation damage which causes the tripping of circuits in normal electronics devices. As electrons moves in vacuum in nanodiamond devices, there are no energetic particles to disrupt.

So you can easily imagine the benefits of such nanodiamond devices.

M.W