merkle@parc.xerox.com (Ralph Merkle) (04/20/91)
The November 19, 1991 issue of the Wall Street Journal, page B1, had an article titled "Diamond Films Might Sparkle In Microchips." Some quotes from the article: "Materials scientists reported a key advance that could open up the use of diamond thin films for microchips and scores of other electronic devices." "A method of forming single-crystal synthetic diamonds on a base of cheap copper was announced by researchers at North Carolina State University in Raleigh and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The single diamonds were about one centimeter, or 0.39 inch, square and only 500 angstroms thick, an angstrom being about four billionths of an inch." "In their report published today in the weekly journal, Science, the North Carolina-Oak Ridge scientists described an entirely new method of making diamond films." "The new method involves first shooting or implanting ions of carbon, or charged carbon atoms, into a copper substrate, according to the report by Jagdish Narayan and V.P. Godbole, materials scientists at North Carolina State, and C.W. White, an ion implantation expert at the Oak Ridge laboratory." "Once the carbon ions are implanted in the copper they are blasted with a powerful pulse of laser light lasting only 45 billionths of a second. The carbon atoms melt and solidify so rapidly they are frozen in the diamond state." "The process is so rapid that the surrounding material doesn't heat up, with the result that the procedure can be carried out at room temperature and can put down diamond films on materials and electronic devices without damaging them."