Deep Ultra Violet (DUV) Diamond Based Light Emitting Diodes (02-214B)

Sinmat Inc. working with University of Florida, proposes to develop an economical and scalable process for fabrication of diamond light emitting diodes (LEDs) that operate in the deep ultraviolet regime. These LEDs are expected to have significant usage inBMDO related activities as compact sources in detection and probes. The formation of diamond LEDs has recently been shown on doped homoepitaxial films that exhibit room temperature exciton emission. However, commercialization of diamond LEDs is limited bypoor crystal quality achieved during diamond growth, lack of reproducible n-type doping and prohibitively high cost of homoepitaxial substrates. Sinmat proposes to solve these challenges by fabricating LEDs on large area (50-100 mm2), nearlydislocation-free, synthetic diamond substrates. Such substrates have not been readily available until recently. Sinmat estimates that the cost per LED will be reduced more than one thousand times by using this methodology, while at the same time enhancingyield and performance of the LEDs. Issues dealing with homoepitaxial growth, reproducible "p" and "n" doping during growth, and patterning/ohmic contact formation will be investigated in this project. Research in this project will be conducted incollaboration with Prof. Steve Pearton at the University of Florida who has extensive expertise in processing of wide band-gap semiconductors. The research team is known worldwide for its expertise in the the area of diamond film synthesis, wide band- gapprocessing and have the necessary infrastructure to meet the goals of the project. The successful development of DUV diamond LEDs is expected to be used as sensor and probes in military applications and as white light sources, pathogen deactivation, andsensors in civilian environments.