Project BriefOpen Competition 1 - Electronics and PhotonicsProcesses for Growing Large, Single-Crystal Aluminum NitrideDevelop cost-effective, high-quality, and commercially important, single-crystal aluminum nitride (AlN) substrates, which are needed for diverse and important power electronics and optoelectronics applications, by using an approach that incorporates new techniques of crystal seed growth, coupled with advanced thermal gradient control, and new crucible designs, to grow large high-quality, AlN crystal boules. Sponsor: Crystal IS, Inc.25 Cord DriveLatham, NY 12110
Group-III nitride semiconductors (aluminum nitride (AlN), gallium nitride (GaN), indium nitride (InN)) have long been considered promising materials for electronic and optoelectronic device applications. AlN has superior properties that could reduce costs and boost performance of a broad variety of high-performance semiconductor-based devices, including power amplifiers for wireless communications and laser and light-emitting diodes for molecule detection, high-density optical data storage, and solid-state lighting applications, among others. The single biggest roadblock to widespread commercialization of AIN devices is the difficulty in preparing high-quality, large diameter crystal substrates of AIN. Semiconductor substrates generally are produced by growing large, single-crystal boules that are then sliced into thin crystal wafers. It has proven remarkably difficult to grow high-quality AIN crystals of any significant size. Problems include the production of good, large-diameter seed crystals to start the boule growth, cracking, and significant variations in the optical transparency of the boules. Crystal IS proposes an aggressive research program that will produce 2-inch diameter, crack-free, optically transparent, semi-insulating, native single-crystal AlN boules and substrates and will generate the knowledge required to transfer that technology to also produce electrically conductive substrates. The proposed approach involves novel designs for the crucible that holds the subliming AlN during condensation and crystallization, and improved process controls. The technical difficulty of the barriers to success (in the areas of seed generation, uncracked boule growth, optical transparency, axial and radial thermal gradient control, and doping) run from medium to high, and private capital cannot bear the risk of a more aggressive approach toward surmounting them. ATP funds are required to enable rapid technological progress in time to meet present, major market opportunities, which will be lost to less cost-effective solutions if the AlN substrate option does not become viable in time. Subcontractors to Crystal IS at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) will perform x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy analyses for this effort, and North Carolina State University (NCSU) subcontractors will perform secondary ion mass spectrometry and cathodoluminescence. If successful, the project will enable a dramatic increase in the quantity and quality of AlN substrate materials commercially available. Previously, new platform technologies, such as gallium arsenide and silicon carbide, sparked important technological advances in personal electronics and wireless and optical communications. Based on recent development in materials and devices, the availability of AlN has the potential to drive important new advances and markets in high-power electronics and optoelectronics.
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