SBIR Phase I: Large Area GaN Wafers

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project proposes to demonstrate the feasibility of producing large area stress-free GaN substrates. This research will focus on the development of defect free GaN wafers by growing thick GaN films using the high growth- rate HVPE method on to novel micromachined sacrificial (111) silicon substrates. The low-cost Si(111) substrates are made compliant by a proprietary photoelectochemical micromachining method. Availability of such high quality GaN substrates will make commercialization of GaN- based devices for various applications feasible. Furthermore, it will be demonstrated that large area (up to 12.) GaN wafers can be produced by this method, which will reduce the device cost dramatically, by economy of scales. Commercial applications of the proposed large area GaN wafers include general lighting, full color displays, traffic signal lighting, information storage, full color copying, RF communications, high temperature and power electronics and chemical/ biological sensors