A Novel Growth Technique for Large Diameter AlN Single Crystals (Phase II)

Investigating Organization
Fairfield Crystal Technology, LLC

Principal Investigator(s)
Dr. Shaoping Wang

Subcontractor
SUNY at Stony Brook, under the direction of Professor Michael Dudley
Yale University, under the direction of Professor Jung Han

Funding Source
Small Business Innovation R&D, Phase II

Award
DOE Share: $750,000; Contractor Share: $200,000

Contract Period
08/07/06 - 08/06/08

III-V nitride-based high brightness UV and visible LEDs are of a great interest for general illumination, but the light output efficiencies of current high brightness LEDs are still inadequate. A key material issue preventing achieving higher light output efficiency in LEDs is the poor crystalline quality of the nitride epilayers resulted from lattice-mismatched substrates. AlN single crystal is the best substrate material, apart from GaN, that is suitable for III-V nitride epitaxy, particularly for UV LED epilayers with high Al contents. Fairfield Crystal Technology will use a novel physical vapor transport technique to grow large diameter, high-quality AlN bulk single crystals. These AlN single crystals can be used as substrates for growth of high-quality nitride LED epilayers.  In this Phase II SBIR project, Fairfield will develop aluminum nitride single crystal substrates that enable fabrication of highly efficient light emitting devices for solid-state lighting.

Content dated 2/08