Diamond Dreams: How DiamFab Plans to Revolutionize Electric Vehicles and Clean Energy

In a modest clean room in Grenoble, France, a team of engineers is working on technology that could fundamentally transform how we manage electricity, from the power grids that light our cities to the electronics in electric vehicles.

Their secret weapon? Synthetic diamonds.

DiamFab, a spin-off from France's prestigious CNRS research institute, is betting that synthetic diamond will become the next breakthrough semiconductor material, potentially outperforming silicon carbide by a factor of 50 in key applications. With €8.7 million in funding and a pilot production line under construction, the company is racing to prove that after decades of laboratory promise, diamond semiconductors are finally ready for prime time.

As the world pours $1.8 trillion annually into the energy transition, more efficient power electronics could accelerate everything from renewable energy adoption to electric vehicle performance. Diamond's exceptional properties include the highest known thermal conductivity and an ultra-wide bandgap. That combination makes it theoretically ideal for handling high voltages and extreme temperatures that would destroy conventional semiconductors.

"The market already exists," said Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer Ivan Llaurado. "We are making a technology with a new material that basically makes the same functionality, but much better."

From Lab Curiosity to Industrial Reality

The story of DiamFab begins in 2019, when CEO Gauthier Chicot and CTO Khaled Driche decided the timing was finally right to commercialize three decades of CNRS research into diamond semiconductors. According to Llaurado, it was a convergence of technological maturity and market readiness.

"Diamond has been recognized for so many years as the ultimate semiconductor for power applications because of its physical properties," Llaurado said. "My colleagues, when they created [the company] in 2019, they saw that the technology was starting to become mature enough. They could foresee where the industry of diamonds was pushing for larger substrates available so that the electronics could become real."

The timing proved prescient. The power electronics market, once limited to trains and industrial motor drives, has exploded with demand from electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, and data centers. Meanwhile, the success of silicon carbide and gallium nitride semiconductors has primed engineers to look beyond traditional silicon for performance gains.

The Diamond Advantage

Writing last year, Llaurado explained the gulf in performance like this: "Think about a basketball and its court. The ball’s surface area represents a diamond component with a given resistance for a 1000 V breaking voltage capacity. And the court? Well, its surface area represents these values for silicon. So, as you can see, there’s a staggering difference in the performance ratio of these two materials in the key figure of merit for power semiconductors."

The science behind this advantage lies in a diamond's atomic structure. Its tightly packed carbon lattice gives it an ultra-wide bandgap, exceptional carrier mobility, and a theoretical breakdown voltage of 10 megavolts per centimeter. Perhaps most importantly, a diamond's thermal conductivity surpasses all other known materials, meaning devices can run hotter without the complex cooling systems that plague conventional semiconductors.

Overcoming the Challenges

Despite its promise, synthetic diamond has remained stubbornly difficult to commercialize. Three major hurdles have historically blocked progress: growing large diamond wafers, achieving consistent quality, and mastering the tricky process of doping—adding impurities that allow semiconductors to conduct electricity.

Unlike silicon, where doping can be done through diffusion or ion implantation, diamond's dense structure requires adding dopants during the growth process itself. DiamFab has developed proprietary techniques to achieve doping levels ranging from barely detectable to metal-like conductivity, a crucial breakthrough for creating functional devices.

The substrate challenge is being addressed industry-wide. While early diamond wafers measured just 2-3 millimeters across, manufacturers have now demonstrated 100-millimeter wafers. DiamFab is targeting 4-inch wafers by 2026, a size that would make diamond cost-competitive with silicon carbide for many applications.

A Staged Approach to Market

Rather than waiting for perfection, DiamFab is pursuing a pragmatic commercialization strategy. The company has identified three distinct timelines for different applications, allowing it to generate revenue while continuing development.

"As per today, in 2025, there are some applications where the current status is good enough to answer the needs of some niche applications," Llaurado said. "For example, for very high temperature electronics or electrochemistry metering."

Space applications represent the medium-term opportunity, with a 3-5 year development horizon. Here, diamond's ability to withstand radiation and extreme temperatures offers unique advantages for satellites and spacecraft.

The biggest prizes are automotive and renewable energy. But these require not just technical success but manufacturing scale to compete on cost. Llaurado estimates these mass markets are 5-10 years away, requiring what he calls "not only a technical challenge, but also an industrialization and scale up challenge."

Building the Ecosystem

DiamFab isn't going it alone. The company has assembled an impressive roster of partners, including STMicroelectronics, Schneider Electric, and Murata. Through European Union-funded projects like "MOvE-Life," which focuses on integrating renewables into power grids, DiamFab is developing 20-kilovolt transistors that could replace entire arrays of conventional devices.

"When you have a DC transmission at 400 kilovolts, which is required to transport electricity... you need to put a lot of them in a series with complex control and cooling systems," Llaurado explained. "By having components that are able to withstand a much higher voltage, we can decrease the cost of the system and increase efficiency."

The company has also benefited from strong support from French institutions, with Bpifrance joining as an investor alongside regional development funds and venture capital firms like Asterion Ventures and Kreaxi.

The Road Ahead

DiamFab faces a critical period. The company is completing its pilot production line, hiring aggressively (six new research staff this year alone), and preparing for its next funding round—likely a mix of equity, debt, and government grants.

Llaurado strikes a balance between optimism and realism about the challenges ahead. "There are some [milestones] that we were actually beyond where expected," he said. "So we had good news, and the development had taken less time than we were expecting. Others, on the contrary, are taking some time. So we are making mitigation plans to accelerate it. But these are processes that take time."

The broader industry trends are encouraging. Major diamond substrate suppliers like Element Six and Applied Diamond Technology are committing to larger, higher-quality wafers. The power electronics market continues its explosive growth. And perhaps most importantly, customers are ready.

As one General Electric customer told Llaurado: "Listen, you don't have to worry about the end markets. If you make a good diamond, there will be a market for your diamond."