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In this paper, we report on the effect of carboxyl- and amine terminations on a boron-doped diamond surface (BDD) in relation to pH sensitivity. Carboxyl termination was achieved by anodization oxidation in Carmody buffer solution (pH 7). The carboxyl-terminated diamond surface was exposed to nitrogen radicals to generate an amine-terminated surface. The pH sensitivity of the carboxyl- and amine-terminated surfaces was measured from pH 2 to pH 12. The pH sensitivities of the carboxyl-terminated surface at low and high pH are 45 and 3 mV/pH, respectively. The pH sensitivity after amine termination is significantly higher—the pH sensitivities at low and high pH are 65 and 24 mV/pH, respectively. We find that the negatively-charged surface properties of the carboxyl-terminated surface due to ionization of –COOH causes very low pH detection in the high pH region (pH 7–12). In the case of the amine-terminated surface, the surface properties are interchangeable in both acidic and basic solutions; therefore, we observed pH detection at both low and high pH regions. The results presented here may provide molecular-level understanding of surface properties with charged ions in pH solutions. The understanding of these surface terminations on BDD substrate may be useful to design diamond-based biosensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (pHEMTs) with lattice-matched InGaAs/InAlAs/InP structures exhibit high mobility and saturation velocity and are hence attractive for the fabrication of three-terminal low-noise and high-frequency devices, which operate at room temperature. The major drawbacks of conventional pHEMT devices are the very low breakdown voltage (<2 V) and the very high gate leakage current (∼1 mA/mm), which degrade device and performance especially in monolithic microwave integrated circuits low-noise amplifiers (MMIC LNAs). These drawbacks are caused by the impact ionization in the low band gap, i.e., the In x Ga (1 − x) As (x = 0.53 or 0.7) channel material plus the contribution of other parts of the epitaxial structure. The capability to achieve higher frequency operation is also hindered in conventional InGaAs/InAlAs/InP pHEMTs, due to the standard 1 μ m flat gate length technology used. A key challenge in solving these issues is the optimization of the InGaAs/InAlAs epilayer structure through band gap engineering. A related challenge is the fabrication of submicron gate length devices using I-line optical lithography, which is more cost-effective, compared to the use of e-Beam lithography. The main goal for this research involves a radical departure from the conventional InGaAs/InAlAs/InP pHEMT structures by designing new and advanced epilayer structures, which significantly improves the performance of conventional low-noise pHEMT devices and at the same time preserves the radio frequency (RF) characteristics. The optimization of the submicron T-gate length process is performed by introducing a new technique to further scale down the bottom gate opening. The outstanding achievements of the new design approach are 90% less gate current leakage and 70% improvement in breakdown voltage, compared with the conventional design. Furthermore, the submicron T-gate length process also shows an increase of about 58% and 33% in f T and f m a x , respectively, compared to the conventional 1 μ m gate length process. Consequently, the remarkable performance of this new design structure, together with a submicron gate length facilitatesthe implementation of excellent low-noise applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]