Cambridge set to research the blues - International Pages - Brief Article

Electronics Times, July 24, 2000

Thomas Swan Scientific Equipment (TSSE) has donated #500,000-worth of equipment to Cambridge University's department of material science and metallurgy to grow gallium nitride.

The donation is supported by #1m for running costs from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. TSSE's machine produces standard 2in wafers in six production lines. Cambridge is now the largest gallium nitride producer in the country.

Colin Humphreys, professor in the materials science department, said: "In the UK, most systems are single wafer lines. We're the only six- wafer system. We started growth 10 days ago and we've already achieved blue light emission from a multi-quantum well LED."

Gallium nitride produces a blue light when a potential is put across it. The band-gap is in the blue part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Gallium nitride offers the possibility of light bulbs that last 100 times longer than traditional tungsten and consume 10% of the energy. It could also be used to make blue lasers and powerful transistors for mobile phone basestations.