CAREER: Atmospheric-Pressure Manufacturing of Nanocrystalline Diamonds by Plasma-Assisted Flat Flame Vapor Deposition

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This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant will support research that will establish new knowledge of an atmospheric-pressure manufacturing process for nanocrystalline diamonds with well-controlled thermal, electrical and optical functionalities. Nanocrystalline diamonds are a class of carbon nanomaterials possessing prominent properties for a wide range of energy, semiconductor, biomedical and quantum applications. However, the current state-of-the-art approaches to fabricating nanoscale diamonds rely on either very high-pressure or low-pressure processes and lack scalability and controllability. These deficiencies stem from a lack of fundamental knowledge in atmospheric-pressure process required for high throughput, scalable manufacturing. The new approach will provide an economically viable platform for continuous, large-scale manufacturing of high-quality nanocrystalline diamonds. The success of this research project can advance a variety of technologies that have strategic importance to the U.S. national welfare and defense, including thermal management, energy conversion and storage, nanoscale sensing, biomedical imaging, quantum computing. The education and outreach activities will contribute to broadening the participation in STEM education and strengthening the next-generation workforce for solving societal challenges, particularly in the field of advanced manufacturing.The flame vapor deposition methods have the capability to synthesize nanocrystalline diamonds at atmospheric pressure. In contrast to the low-pressure or high-pressure processes that are operated in a batch-by-batch manner with long downtime for loading and unloading samples, the atmospheric-pressure flame synthesis approach shows great promise for continuous production that is more efficient and cost-effective for up-scaling to large quantities and large areas. To advance the atmospheric-pressure manufacturing of nanocrystalline diamonds, the research work will investigate the coupling of flame vapor deposition and plasma, with the hypothesis of two synergistic effects that can be made by flame-plasma coupling: 1) improving the growth rate, uniformity and stability for scaling up, and 2) increasing the in-situ doping efficiency for controlling the functionality of nanocrystalline diamond. The project will take a combined experimental and modeling approach to advance the understanding of the controllability and scalability of plasma assisted flame vapor deposition process, study the in-situ doping capability, and develop a continuous, atmospheric prototype with in-line quality diagnosis for manufacturing functional nanocrystalline diamond materials and devices.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.