I-Corps: Technology Transfer for Commercialization of Industrial, Electronic and Medical Device Products Based on a Patented Ultrananocrystalline Diamond Coating

产品可靠性是任何公司都关心并向客户提供的主要问题之一。例如，恶劣的锂离子电池环境对金属基阳极和阴极的化学侵蚀大大缩短了电池的寿命，并严重降低了电池的性能。目前植入人体的金属假体，如髋关节和膝关节，会被体液腐蚀，导致疼痛，需要尽早更换。I-CORPS团队专注于确定和开发新型专利超晶金刚石（UNCD）薄膜的商业化途径，作为暴露在恶劣化学和机械环境中的工业，电子和医疗设备/系统的关键部件的涂层，将其使用寿命和性能提高至少一个数量级。该计划的重点是探索新一代锂离子电池（lib）的市场，这些锂离子电池的阳极、阴极、膜和内壁外壳都涂有UNCD涂层，由于UNCD涂层对所有电池组件的腐蚀具有保护作用，因此生产的锂离子电池寿命比目前的锂离子电池长10倍，尺寸更小。该技术将用于硬币型手机小电池。UNCD涂层的另一个应用将是医疗设备和植入物，该小组所做的初步工作表明，UNCD涂层可以使新一代医疗植入物的寿命和性能比目前未涂层的金属植入物（例如，髋关节、膝盖、牙齿植入物，由于体液的化学附着而失效）长一个数量级，而目前的金属植入物由于体液的化学攻击而失效。获得专利的UNCD涂层将使用微波等离子体化学气相沉积（MPCVD）和热丝化学气相沉积（HFCVD）技术进行生长，以确定哪种涂层可为特定应用提供最佳涂层性能。过去20年的研究工作表明，UNCD薄膜具有独特的纳米结构，晶粒尺寸为3至5纳米，并具有独特的性能组合，即：1)与任何其他已知涂层相比，最高的硬度和耐磨性（类似于单晶金刚石），2)表面非常光滑（均数粗糙度为~ 3-5 nm）， 3)与任何其他涂层相比，最低的摩擦系数，4)极低的应力，5)表面润湿性可调，从高度疏水性（表面无水附着）到高度亲水性（高水附着），6)极耐任何强酸和人体液体的化学侵蚀（对于医疗植入物涂层的应用至关重要），7)在金刚石晶格中掺杂硼原子或在晶界中掺杂氮原子时具有导电性，8)在不掺杂B或N的情况下生长时具有电绝缘性，9)与其他电极材料相比，掺杂B的UNCD具有最广泛的电化学潜力。10) UNCD薄膜具有电子发射的最低阈值电压之一；11)UNCD薄膜可以通过光刻和蚀刻工艺加工，用于制造硅基MEMS/NEMS器件，以生产远优于硅基同类器件的新一代器件；12)UNCD具有极高的生物相容性。上述禁毒署的特性使其具有上述广泛技术应用的多功能，可对若干高科技市场产生重大影响。MPCVD技术将被植入一个工业型系统，该系统能够在直径达200毫米的基板上生长UNCD薄膜，以证明将UNCD生长过程立即转移到工业兼容过程中。HFCVD技术将在一个能够在直径达100毫米的基板上生长UNCD薄膜的系统中实施。

Product reliability is one of the main issues that any company worries about and offers to the customers. For example, chemical attack of metal-based anodes and cathodes by the harsh Li-ion battery environment shortens substantially the battery lifetime and strongly reduces it performance. Current metallic prostheses, such as hips and knees, implanted in humans, exhibit corrosion by body fluids, resulting in pain and need for early replacement. This I-CORPS team focuses on identifying and developing the commercialization pathway for novel patented ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films as coatings for critical components of industrial, electronic, and medical devices/systems exposed to harsh chemically and mechanical environments, improving their lifetime and performance by at least one order of magnitude. The focus of the proposed effort will be to explore the insertion into the market of a new generation of Li-ion batteries (LIBs) with UNCD-coated anodes, cathodes, membranes, and inner walls case, to produce LIBs with ¡Ý 10x longer life and smaller dimensions than for current LIBs, due to the protective action of the UNCD coatings on all battery components from corrosion. The technology will be demonstrated for coin-type cell phone small batteries. The other application of UNCD coatings will be for medical devices and implants, for which preliminary work done by this team group has demonstrated that UNCD coatings can enable a new generation of medical implants with order of magnitude longer life and superior performance than current uncoated metal implants (e.g., hips, knees, dental implants, which are failing due to chemical attach by body fluids), which are failing due to chemical attack by body fluids.The patented UNCD coatings will be grown using microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) and hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) techniques, available to the team, to determine which provides the best coating properties for the specific application. The research work over the last 20 years has demonstrated that the UNCD films exhibit unique nanostructures with 3 to 5 nm grain sizes, and a unique combination of properties, namely: 1) highest hardness and resistance to wear (similar to single crystal diamond) compared to any other known coating, 2) extremely smooth surface (rms roughness of ~ 3-5 nm), 3) lowest friction coefficient compared to any other coatings, 4) extremely low stress, 5) tunability of surface wettability from highly hydrophobic (no water adhesion to the surface) to highly hydrophilic (high water adhesion), 6) extremely resistant to chemical attack by any strong acid and human body fluids (critical for applications as coating for medical implants), 7) electrically conductive when doped with boron atoms in the diamond lattice or nitrogen atoms in the grain boundaries, 8) electrically insulating when grown without B or N incorporation, 9) B-doped UNCD exhibits the widest electrochemical potential compared with other electrode materials, 10) UNCD films exhibit one of the lowest threshold voltages for electron emission, 11) UNCD films can be processed by lithography and etching processes used for fabrication of silicon based MEMS/NEMS devices, to produce a new generation of these devices far superior than silicon based counterparts, and 12) UNCD is extremely biocompatible. The UNCD properties mentioned above enable multi-functionalities for a wide range of technological applications as described above, which can make a substantial impact in several high-tech markets. The MPCVD technique will be implanted in an industrial-type system capable of growing UNCD films on up to 200 mm diameter substrates to demonstrate immediate transfer of the UNCD growth process into an industrial compatible process. The HFCVD technique will be implemented in a system capable of growing UNCD films on up to 100 mm diameter substrates.