As extra funding flows into deep tech to deal with tough world issues like local weather change, PhD entrepreneurs popping out of Europe’s prime universities and labs are more and more turning their analysis into corporations.
French spinout Diamfab, based in 2019, is one instance. Its co-founders, CEO Gauthier Chicot and CTO Khaled Driche, each PhDs in nanoelectronics and acknowledged researchers within the subject of semiconducting diamond, left Institut Néel, a laboratory of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), with two licensed patents beneath their belt.
Since then, Chicot and Driche have registered extra patents and introduced on a 3rd co-founder, Ivan Llaurado, as their chief income officer and partnership director. They additionally raised an €8.7 million spherical of funding from Asterion Ventures, Bpifrance’s French Tech Seed fund, Kreaxi, Better Angle, Hello Tomorrow and Grenoble Alpes Métropole.
This curiosity comes as a result of the paradigm round semiconducting diamonds has modified within the final two years. “Diamonds are no longer a laboratory subject: They have become an industrial reality, with startups, with manufacturers interested in this field, and with the partners we have around us,” Chicot informed TechCrunch.
Getting out of the lab
Silicon remains to be essentially the most broadly used semiconductor materials in electronics as a result of it’s ubiquitous and low cost. But there’s hope different choices may sometime outperform it, and never simply in labs. Tesla’s resolution to make use of silicon carbide as a substitute of silicon was an essential step in that route, and diamond may very well be subsequent.
Because diamond is of course extra immune to excessive temperatures and extra energy-efficient, Diamfab envisions a future wherein a given part will want a a lot smaller floor of artificial diamond than of silicon carbide, which is able to make it aggressive on worth.
The agency’s long-term aim is to make extra environment friendly semiconductors with a decrease carbon footprint, whereas additionally supporting what Chicot refers to as “the electrification of society,” beginning with transportation.
Diamond-based electronics open the door to purposes within the subject of energy electronics — consider smaller batteries and chargers with extra autonomy, as a result of much less temperature management is required, which is especially related for the automotive sector and electrical mobility. But diamond wafers is also leveraged for nuclear batteries, area tech and quantum computing, too.
The case for diamond as a greater various to silicon doesn’t come out of nowhere; Diamfab is constructing on the Institut Néel’s 30 years of R&D into artificial diamond progress. Its founders wished to take this expertise out of the lab. “We wanted to be useful pioneers,” Chicot stated.
Being awarded the Jury’s Grand Prize of i-Lab in 2019 was a turning level for the agency. Co-organized by French establishments, it introduced grants and a way of validation that helped the group inwards and outwards.
With this seal of approval, “banks trust you even if you don’t generate any sales,” Chicot stated.”It was an actual plus at first to get this award. And it was partly as a result of we have now nice expertise, and partly as a result of it’s expertise that’s essential for the world.”
Diamond guarantees
French public sector funding financial institution Bpifrance, one of many organizers of the i-Lab awards, is doubling down on Diamfab with funding from the French Tech Seed fund, which Bpifrance manages on behalf of the French authorities as a part of the France 2030 plan.
When silicon has turn into a commodity, Diamfab’s high-value-added diamond wafers may very well be made in Europe and bought at a premium warranted by their greater effectivity, which additionally ties into the inexperienced transition. Decarbonization is one key aim of France 2030, and diamonds may assist.
Their carbon footprint could be lighter due to the smaller floor that diamond requires compares to silicon carbide, but additionally as a result of Diamfab synthetizes its diamonds from methane. In…
