The purest GaN crystals grown in Poland
Surprisingly, an unknown Polish company Ammono was able to beat the giants of the electronics industry, such as Intel, and get the purest crystals of gallium nitride (GaN) - a critical material for 21st century electronics.
Simple chemists from Warsaw will now become multimillionaires, and their names will be brought into the pantheon of electronic industry fame, the IEEE Spectrum magazine writes .
Due to its unique physical properties ( forbidden band 3.39 eV) and high brightness LEDs from pure GaN crystal, it is widely used to create blue LEDs, semiconductor lasers, microwave transistors and space electronics .
Obtaining more pure GaN crystals is a real revolution in electronics, because it will allow you to make higher-quality blue lasers, brighter and clearer LED-screens and LED-bulbs, as well as cheaper electronics.
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Polish chemists used a new method of growing crystals under pressure and at temperatures above 1500 ° C, but under such conditions it was impossible to grow a crystal larger than 20 mm in size. Then they began to look for alternative methods and found a way to adapt an efficient technology for growing quartz single crystals for gallium nitride using supercritical fluid .
The Ammono method produces crystals up to 51 mm in size. Over the next year, scientists plan to develop a method for cutting crystals into thin "wafers" suitable for the manufacture of substrates in the electronics industry. And if Ammono can increase the size of the crystals, although up to 100 mm (they plan to do this by 2015), then many electronics manufacturers will immediately start using new material instead of silicon, because GaN chips have clear advantages in some applications. For example, they do not heat up so much under high voltage, which is crucial for automotive electronics.
Industry demand for gallium nitride is growing rapidly. According to experts, the annual volume of the GaN market has already reached $ 100 million and will double annually in the foreseeable future. Now the cost of one 51-mm crystal on the market is $ 5000.
On the left, the first GaN crystals obtained by Ammono twenty years ago; due to metallic impurities have an unsightly brownish tint. On the right - absolutely pure GaN crystals with the shape of a regular hexagon up to 51 mm in size; product of recent years.
Simple chemists from Warsaw will now become multimillionaires, and their names will be brought into the pantheon of electronic industry fame, the IEEE Spectrum magazine writes .
Due to its unique physical properties ( forbidden band 3.39 eV) and high brightness LEDs from pure GaN crystal, it is widely used to create blue LEDs, semiconductor lasers, microwave transistors and space electronics .
Obtaining more pure GaN crystals is a real revolution in electronics, because it will allow you to make higher-quality blue lasers, brighter and clearer LED-screens and LED-bulbs, as well as cheaper electronics.
')
Polish chemists used a new method of growing crystals under pressure and at temperatures above 1500 ° C, but under such conditions it was impossible to grow a crystal larger than 20 mm in size. Then they began to look for alternative methods and found a way to adapt an efficient technology for growing quartz single crystals for gallium nitride using supercritical fluid .
The Ammono method produces crystals up to 51 mm in size. Over the next year, scientists plan to develop a method for cutting crystals into thin "wafers" suitable for the manufacture of substrates in the electronics industry. And if Ammono can increase the size of the crystals, although up to 100 mm (they plan to do this by 2015), then many electronics manufacturers will immediately start using new material instead of silicon, because GaN chips have clear advantages in some applications. For example, they do not heat up so much under high voltage, which is crucial for automotive electronics.
Industry demand for gallium nitride is growing rapidly. According to experts, the annual volume of the GaN market has already reached $ 100 million and will double annually in the foreseeable future. Now the cost of one 51-mm crystal on the market is $ 5000.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/108614/
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