The AM Forum

I caught the tail end of a NOVA program the other day, where they were talking to a manufacturer of artificial diamonds.  The gems are grown in a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) and replicate natural diamonds well enough to fool experts. 

Interestingly, the reason for developing the technology was not for gems, although that is immediately profitable, but They can grow sheets of diamond crystal, which is an insulator, and dope it just like silicon forming a carbon based transistor, and a Diamond based semiconductor would greatly exceed the power handling abilities of Silicon.  In reality it's probable decades away from a practical application yet.

As I watched, I got the ridiculous image of a Class E rig, with a Final measured in Carats!! 

I think that using diamond for the substrate has been around for a long time (> 30 years), but has not been well known due to being an expensive niche product.  Sapphire is in the same boat (great insulator and high thermal conductivity) and is becoming popular in cell-phone r.f. i.c.s., referred to as silicon-on-sapphire.

You can't beat the low cost of silicon i.c.s with MOCVD process.  The diamond and sapphire substrates won't replace all silicon i.c.s, but becomes more economical for the applications "forced" to the use of sapphire.

I think the technology now to grow a wafer of diamond crystal is what will make it more cost effective. I doubt it will ever be as ubiquitous as silicon, but it's still interesting technology.

According to some experts the way man made diamonds are detected from manufactured is the fact that all natural diamonds have flaws in them.

Man made diamonds,  from what these experts on the show I watched said, are near perfect. Great letting us know about this, I'll research it more.