
GaN Bulk Growth and Epitaxy from Ca-Ga-N SolutionsAward last edited on: 7/10/2020
Sponsored Program
SBIRAwarding Agency
NASA : JPLTotal Award Amount
$699,582Award Phase
2Solicitation Topic Code
O1.07Principal Investigator
Jody J KlaassenCompany Information
The IIIAN Company LLC
2700 East 28th Street Suite 120
Minneapolis, MN 55406
Minneapolis, MN 55406
(612) 226-1249 |
N/A |
N/A |
Location: Single
Congr. District: 05
County: Hennepin
Congr. District: 05
County: Hennepin
Phase I
Contract Number: NNX10CD94PStart Date: 1/29/2010 Completed: 7/29/2010
Phase I year
2010Phase I Amount
$99,582Benefits:
Group III-nitride optoelectronics have become prevalent in commercial applications for shortwavelength blue and UV LEDs. Laser diodes made from this material system are still limited in lifetime by thermal degradation due to scattering effects IR-loss at line defects. The approach presented here for defect density reduction will benefit these commercial optoelectronics. This proposal addresses the specification stated in solicitation topic O1.07 for "Epitaxial GaN films with threading dislocations less than 106 per cm2 for use in space qualified wide band-gap semiconductor devices at X- and Ka-band." The goal of The IIIAN Company is to provide these low defect density GaN films on 6" diameter substrates as starting templates for subsequent growth of GaN/AlGaN HEMT structures. With the common epitaxial growth techniques for group III-nitrides, Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) and Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD), line defects follow through from those in the initial buffer layer. By utilizing LPE to produce low defect density GaN films on 6" substrates, IIIAN will enable compound semiconductor manufacturers (i.e. RFMD, TriQuint, Anadigics) to better utilize the group III-nitride material system for the high frequency, high power SSPAs requested in this topic for future NASA missions to the moon and the planets.
Phase II
Contract Number: NNX11CB12CStart Date: 6/1/2011 Completed: 5/31/2013
Phase II year
2011Phase II Amount
$600,000Benefits:
Group III-nitride semiconductor technology for discrete transistors and MMICs has a wide range of applications for cell phones, wireless infrastructure (base stations), switching power supplies, and in high performance military electronics. Most of these applications are related to power amplification, but group III-nitrides having much higher breakdown voltages than other compound semiconductors like GaAs or InP also offer significant advantages for toughened, low noise receivers. Low dislocation density GaN films are also a necessity for long-lived blue and UV semiconductor lasers, and a more robust and cost efficient GaN template technology will directly impact the viability of solid state lighting. The proposed work is in direct response to the call in subtopic O1.07 in the 2009 NASA SBIR solicitation for "High-efficiency (> 60%) Solid-State Power Amplifiers (SSPAs), of both medium output power (10 W-50 W) and high-output power (150 W-1 KW), using power combining techniques and/or wide band-gap semiconductor devices at X-band (8.4 GHz) and Ka-band (26 GHz, 32 GHz and 38GHz)" and "Epitaxial GaN films with threading dislocations less than 106 per cm2 for use in space qualified wide band-gap semiconductor devices at X- and Ka-band." These calls for technical advancement are in turn directly related to high data rate communications with future NASA missions to the moon, to Mars, and to the outer solar system.