Sumitomo Manufactures 2-Inch GaN Substrates for Green Semiconductor Lasers

Sumitomo Electric, provider of fiber-optic services, announced that it has begun manufacturing 2” diameter nonpolar and semipolar gallium nitride (GaN) substrates.

The company started developing the manufacturing technology for the GaN substrates after developing green semiconductor lasers in 2009.

Sumitomo expects the materials to enhance the performance of the white LEDs and the green semiconductor lasers. The company has developed manufacturing technologies that exhibit piezoelectric effects on the polarized substrates. The piezoelectric effects help in enhancing the device luminous efficacy.

The company, instead of using the traditional manufacturing methods, developed a new hydride vapor phase epitaxy (H-VPE) manufacturing technology for manufacturing the 2” substrates. This manufacturing technology allowed the company to overcome the hindrance of small crystals that facilitated in developing high efficiency LEDs. The traditional methods of manufacturing the nonpolar and semipolar GaN substrates involved in diagonally or vertically slicing the GaN crystals.