AKHAN Acquires Rights to Low Temperature Nanocrystalline Diamond Deposition Technology

In a sweeping series of announcements, AKHAN Technologies, Inc., the global leader in diamond semiconductor technology, today announced the acquisition of exclusive licensing rights to breakthrough low temperature diamond deposition technology developed by the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) at Argonne National Laboratory.

The method allows for the deposition of nanocrystalline diamond on a variety of wafer substrate materials at temperatures as low as 400 degrees Celsius, highly advantageous for integration with processed semiconductor electronic materials and resulting in the deposition of low-defect Nanocrystalline Diamond (NCD) thin films. The combination of the Argonne’s low temperature diamond technology with the AKHAN Miraj Diamond™ process represents the state-of-the-art in diamond semiconductor thin-film technology.

With the recent acquisition of Argonne’s low temperature diamond technology, AKHAN plans to fabricate thin film n-type NCD devices on-Fused Silica (Glass) 4” wafers at CMOS compatible thermal budget. AKHAN Founder and CEO Adam Khan commented, “The vertically integrated development capability now afforded through the combination of IP will allow for both next-generation performance devices and lower per-unit costs more conducive to present global industry demands.” Argonne Scientist and Co-Inventor of the Argonne IP Anirudha Sumant commented “…this will break barriers that restricted the use of diamond thin films in the semiconductor industry limited to only p-type doping. The AKHAN process will allow us to fabricate efficient p-n junction devices based on diamond, which was not possible before, and Argonne’s technology will allow integration with the existing CMOS platform. This is an important step in the realization of a ‘Diamond Age’.” Argonne CNM Deputy Division Director and Industrial Relations Liaison Andreas Roelofs commented, “…AKHAN and Argonne are planning to develop this further through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) initiative and we are looking forward to the further developments in diamond technology and hope to continue our successful collaboration with AKHAN in the future.”

As part of a recent collaborative project, AKHAN also announced the availability of published characterization data of the company’s Miraj Diamond™ technology. In the article, AKHAN and Argonne researchers confirm breakthrough morphological, phase, and electrical characterization data for both N-type NCD wafer material and NCD PIN diode devices. The full paper is available through Cambridge Journals Online.