The excellent tribological performance of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) makes this material a potential candidate for the fabrication of long endurance micro/nano-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) that could involve contacting surfaces. In this work, UNCD and nitrogen incorporated UNCD (N-UNCD) microstructures have been produced and investigated, in order to analyze their intrinsic stress component. A solution for stress reduction is proposed: the application of a titanium stress-compensation coating seems to be an optimum route to obtain flat, free-standing N-UNCD films.

Despite the many superior attributes of diamond, electronic device performance to date has fallen well behind theoretical expectation. The potential realization of highly efficient electronic polycrystalline diamond devices has been more than limited by certain technological challenges such as maintaining efficient/shallow n-type doping without higher density of defects or incorporation of sp2 bonded carbon as a result of doping(during ion implantation process). Specific n-type diamond reports demonstrating phosphorus doping (with activation energy reported in the range of 485 meV to 600 meV in (100) oriented systems have been particularly problematic as a lower solubility is found as compared to (111) oriented synthesis efforts, in addition to the reported self-compensating nature. Amongst the previous reports of Phosphorus-doped diamond nearly all experimental reports to date show visual crystallographic dislocation/pitting on the (100) facet with even moderate doping where dislocations have been observed to be incorporated into the bulk volume during growth. These dislocations, which are known carrier scattering sites, subsequently lower mobility rendering poor conductance and high resistivity. Due to this well-known sensitivity of phosphorus incorporation to the crystal quality, typically lower in polycrystalline than homoepitaxial films, polycrystalline-based experimental reports have been largely absent. With respect to Phosphorus in-situ doping based efforts, rendered films demonstrate both the visually identifiable pitting and electronically identifiable poor conduction characteristic, and with respect to ion beam doping efforts, complete graphitic flaking at even moderate doses (i.e. greater than 3x1017cm−3). Motivated by these shortcomings and the success of recent experimentation, we present the methodology and data from our recent successful fabrication of polycrystalline diamond P+-i-N junction (diode) with high crystal quality, high power handling capability, high current density, low threshold voltage, and ohmic contact, under room temperature operation, previously undemonstrated across all diamond material types. The superior electrical performance of the device was obtained by novel ion beam methodology designed to resolve previously unaddressed issues relating to n-type doping of diamond materials. A high current density of approximately 104 A/cm2 is attained at 20V forward bias.

Developing energy efficient electronics or green electronics is an area that is largely driven by the performance limitations of scaled Si-based CMOS due to the exceptionally high power dissipation and high leakage currents arising in such devices at nanoscale dimensions. It is clear now that Si-based CMOS has been stretched over the past several decades to the point that further miniaturization will make such simple size scaling non-sustainable in the future. New materials and technologies are thus vigorously being explored beyond Si, in order to overcome performance limitations from ultra-miniaturized Si-CMOS. Among these materials, carbon-based nanostructures such as graphene and carbon nanotubes are being considered as viable alternatives to Si-CMOS to enable energy efficient green electronics. Novel architectures for enabling low-power, energy-efficient computation are currently being explored, which include tunneling field-effect-transistors (TFETs), as well as nano-electro-mechanical-systems (NEMS) due to their abrupt ON/OFF transitions, low OFF state currents and high speed operation. In this paper, an overview of carbon nanomaterials is presented and the role they play in enabling energy efficient TFETs and NEMS is also highlighted. Finally, the emergence of a new class of 2D systems beyond graphene is discussed such as MoS2, which may open up new avenues for exploration and enabling applications in electronics.

Patterned micro-and nanowires composed of Iron Oxide (FexOy) were electrochemically deposited from an ionic liquid solution of choline chloride (ChCl) and urea, using ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) ™ templates originally developed for Electroplate and Lift (E&L) Lithography. The wires were electroplated under varying rigor of anhydrous and inert atmosphere techniques, at voltages of either -2V or -5V vs. an Al/Al(III) reference electrode. The morphology of the deposited FexOy wires was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), while their oxygen content was evaluated using energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). By using sublimed grade reagents and minimizing exposure to atmospheric water vapor and oxygen, the oxygen content of the electroplated wires decreased from 15 at% to 5 at%.