LED-on-glass firm claims emission breakthrough
The Australian start-up company BluGlass claims to have observed "short-lived" emission from a GaN LED structure fabricated on a glass substrate.
Spun out from Sydney s Macquarie University after a decade of research on the topic, BluGlass is embarking on a world tour over the next few weeks in which it will present its progress to what are described as "key global players" in the LED business.
The company s research team has developed a way to deposit GaN onto glass substrates, which it believes could yield much cheaper blue, green and white LEDs for general lighting applications.
The plasma deposition process that BluGlass has developed works at 700°C - around 300°C lower than the normal MOCVD method - and eliminates the need for ammonia gas, which is one of the main expenses faced by LED manufacturers today.
BluGlass now claims to have demonstrated continuous-wave emission from a heterojunction deposited onto sapphire using the low-temperature process, and "short-lived" emission from a similar structure on specially-engineered glass provided by Saint-Gobain.
The company adds that its deposition method has produced highly-uniform nitride films on four-inch glass wafers, and good results on a six-inch wafer - although it has not provided any specific materials characterization data.
Because of the novel process and its potential applicability to large-area wafer manufacturing, BluGlass is keen to promote the technology as a method that could drive down the cost of LED fabrication significantly.
However, with only brief emission observed from GaN-on-glass so far, the company still has much to prove.
During the BluGlass world tour, CEO David Jordan will be promoting both the technology itself and its potential for low cost-of-ownership when compared with MOCVD, the technique that is used almost universally to manufacture LEDs today.
While there are already signs of the start of a move by some of the major LED producers to 4-inch wafer processing (see related stories), investors appear to be backing BluGlass strongly. Since the company s debut on the Australian stock exchange in late 2006, BluGlass shares have more than tripled in value to AUS$0.855.
