Dr Zongyou Yin’s team invented the device, which is a new type of ultra-thin transistor - a semiconductor used to amplify and switch electric signals, similar to a light switch.

“When we go home and it’s night we need to turn on the light, right? It’s like a button. The transistor is very similar to that button, we can turn it on,” Dr Yin said.

The diamonds used were commercial ones bought from a supplier of synthetic diamonds used for industrial purposes.

“The key point is the traditional compounds cannot work very well in high frequency, high power, high radiation, extreme environments,” he said.

Dr Yin’s device improves on previous designs by replacing the compounds used such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride, which are not ideal for certain environments.

These environments include rocket ships in space and, more practically, car engines. The diamonds act as insulators in the device, with the small, flat, diamonds forming a foundation of two additional layers.

“We use a very tiny diamond, three by three millimetres, then we grow a very thin layer on top, which is also very tiny, less than seven millimetres,” Dr Yin said.

“The first layer is a hydrogen atom, then above that we grow second layer, of hydrogenated molybdenum oxide."

Dr Yin says the diamond transistor could be ready for large-scale manufacturing in three to five years, which he says would be the beginning of further commercial development of the device.

The Australian National University’s research was part of a collaborative study with the University of Massachusetts and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.