Diamond Devices for Power Electronics

International audienceIn this talk, I will focus on the specificities of diamond devices for power electronics. Although very promising diamond electronic devices and power devices have been presented [1-6], many challenges remain to be solved for diamond devices in power electronics: achieving high electric field and reproducible avalanche breakdown, higher ON current density and higher total current, lower total ON state resistance, imagining specific device architectures… In this context, I will first present the recent research on simulation, design and characterization of diamond power devices, with a special focus on unipolar power devices and optimization of diamond power transistors (contribution of contact, access, channel and drift region resistance to the total ON state resistance, benchmarking versus other devices and materials ). Temperature operation and system-level considerations on diamond power transistors will be discussed. Based on these analyses, innovative diamond power transistors will be presented, associated with preliminary performances and further optimizations. Finally, characterization and implementation of diamond power devices in a 10-30W power commutation cell will be described. Although a lot of work is still remaining on the material side, it is indeed the right time to push forward the diamond power electronics. The research leading to these results has been performed within the GreenDiamond project (http://www.greendiamond-project.eu/) and received funding from the European Community's Horizon 2020 Programme (H2020/2014-2020) under grant agreement n° 640947. This project is partially funded by French Research Agency under grant ANR-16-CE05-0023-01 #Diamond-HVDC