EXPLORING AN ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR MANUFACTURING ELECTRONICS FOR EXTREME TEMPERATURES

Abstract

Within our increasingly digital world, there is a demand to integrate electronics into every industry to take advantage of applications in communication, optimization, and artificial intelligence. Relatively untapped areas for electronics implementation are the extreme environments where high temperatures (>300°C) are present. These environments are common within energy, automotive, and aerospace industry es. Current high temperature technologies limit reliable use of electronics to ~200°C. Emerging technologies, such as transient liquid phase (TLP) bonding, copper sintering, and thick films, have not yet demonstrated resilient operation above 300°C. Possessing various remarkable properties, diamond is a promising material that can be used in manufacturing electronic devices operable well above 500°C. Graphene and graphite additionally can serve as conductive material for circuitry or other electronic elements. The compatibility and versatility of these three materials demonstrate the potential for robust, all-carbon electronics for high temperature applications. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD), the predominant method of synthesizing diamond for electronics, involves very costly, long processes at extreme temperatures. A relatively underdeveloped, alternative method utilizes the pyrolysis of polymer precursors into diamond. This study aims to further explore this method using Poly(naphthalene-co-hydridocarbyne) (PNHC). The polymer synthesis, processing, and pyrolysis have been performed here, and the process parameters and outcomes at each step have been documented. Native graphite and graphene growth on diamond surfaces allows for the integration of conductive material on insulating diamond. Four known methods of diamond graphitization, assisted with the metal catalysts nickel, copper, and iron, have also been applied to support the fabrication of carbon-based electronics. Ultimately in this study, the synthesis of diamond has been unsuccessful, but multi-layer graphene has been grown on polycrystalline diamond with high sheet carrier concentration and mobility values of 1.0*1015 cm-2 and 629.1 cm2 Vs-1, respectively.