SBIR Phase I: Low-Cost Nitride LED Manufacturing and Buffer Technology

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目提出了一种制造氮基发光二极管（led）的新方法。目前，led价格昂贵，因为它们是使用热金属有机化学气相沉积（MOCVD）在蓝宝石衬底上生产的。在这个项目中，我们将开发一种新的低温缓冲层技术，使氮化镓薄膜能够在硅衬底上生长。用MOCVD在硅上生长氮化镓的电流缓冲层需要高温处理。这导致薄膜中的高拉伸应力，导致晶体质量差和晶圆弯曲，从而导致良率损失，在某些情况下甚至导致晶圆开裂。低温缓冲层的生长具有挑战性，因为薄膜在较低温度下倾向于以三维柱状模式生长。为了克服这种技术风险，将开发一种新型缓冲器，也可以扩展到大面积处理。该项目的广泛影响/商业潜力将通过降低led的制造成本来加速led的大规模采用。由于其能源效率和相关的环境效益，led具有巨大的潜力，可以产生积极的社会影响。然而，目前led的成本是紧凑型荧光灯的5到10倍，这阻碍了大规模采用。通过允许使用硅衬底和提高增长率，我们的新制造工艺有可能将LED制造成本降低7.5倍，用于批量生产。此外，本项目开发的缓冲技术也广泛适用于其他光电应用。因此，该项目的成功完成不仅会通过加速LED的采用而产生重大的社会影响，而且还会通过创造美国绿色就业机会和保持美国在广泛光电应用中的技术领先地位而产生积极的经济影响。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project advances a novel method to manufacture nitride-based light emitting diodes (LEDs). Currently, LEDs are expensive due to the fact that they are produced on sapphire substrates using thermal metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). In this project, we will develop a new low-temperature buffer layer technology to enable gallium nitride film growth on silicon substrates. The current buffer layers for gallium nitride growth on silicon by MOCVD require high-temperature processing. This leads to high tensile stress in the film, resulting in poor crystal quality and wafer bowing, which lead to yield loss, and in some cases even cracking of the wafer. The low-temperature buffer layer growth is challenging, as the films tend to grow in a three-dimensional columnar mode at lower temperatures. To overcome this technical risk, a novel buffer will be developed that can also be scaled to large area processing. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will accelerate the mass-scale adoption of LEDs by reducing their manufacturing cost. LEDs have tremendous potential to make a positive societal impact due to their energy efficiency and the associated environmental benefits. However, LEDs currently cost 5 to 10 times as much as compact fluorescent lighting, preventing large-scale adoption. By allowing the use of silicon substrates and increasing growth rates, our new manufacturing process has the potential to reduce the LED manufacturing cost by up to 7.5 times for volume production. Moreover, the buffer technology to be developed in this project is also applicable to a wide range of other optoelectronic applications. Therefore, the successful completion of this project would not only have a significant societal impact by accelerating LED adoption, but also have positive economic impact by creating US green jobs and maintaining US technology leadership in a wide range of optoelectronic applications.