This Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity project from University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M), entitled, "New Substrates Enabling Next Generation Optical Devices: Solar Cells to Lasers," exploits the recent innovations in the form of 'virtual' substrates developed at the University of Wisconsin to provide new materials required for opening market capabilities in the areas of optoelectronic devices, specifically light emitters, in new wavelength ranges and solar cells. These materials will be developed through the industrial partnerships that provide them with a competitive advantage in burgeoning niche markets available for such devices. The use of the hydride vapor phase epitaxy growth of GaAs and related compounds provides the capability to create new types of substrates, 'virtual' substrates, which serve as new device, and hence, manufacturing platforms for optoelectronic devices. The high achieved growth rates and control over composition has enabled the formation of semiconductor substrates with a surface that can have a lattice parameter not accessible by commercially available bulk semiconductor substrates. These ultra-thick metamorphic buffer layers transition between a commercial substrate and an epitaxial surface layer which have differing lattice parameters. The resulting surface lattice parameter is tunable, enabling new classes of devices spanning the spectrum for the industrial partners from solar cells to high-performance quantum cascade lasers. The partnerships developed in this project allow for the development of a new capacity for translational research at UW-M through the integration of materials development, with intimate feedback from the industrial partners in terms of design and materials metrics that arerequired for the use of such new materials.
The broader impacts of this project result from 1) the impact on technologies that benefit society, create new markets, and provide unique materials for market entry in the area of optoelectronic devices; 2) the human capital acquired by the participants, especially the graduate and undergraduate students; and 3) the inclusion of undergraduate interns in an environment where the impact of engineering and the generation of new products are readily apparent. This proposal serves to drive these industrial-academic interactions towards the mindful development of other materials built on a new perspective of technology transfer. Industrial partners gain access to materials enabling classes of devices resulting in the expansion of the markets for high performance and specialized semiconductor optoelectronic devices. This partnership will bring to an enhanced level of utility and development a class of 'virtual' and potentially re-usable substrates enabling the widespread development of novel classes of devices previously unachievable through the use of current commercial substrates. The formation, preparation, and processing of these new substrates is carried out in the context of their end-use in the areas of high-performance quantum cascade lasers, new quantum well infrared solid-state lasers, and high-performance multi-junction solar cells. The co-development of these materials by UW-M and the industrial partners will demonstrate and enable optoelectronic devices no longer constrained by lattice-matching to commercial substrates. The UW-M researchers gain knowledge of the design of materials based on the understanding of the product development cycle and those key technological issues which must be addressed to impact new markets.
Partners at the inception of the project are the University of Wisconsin-Madison through an interdisciplinary effort between the Departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering; and three small businesses: MicroLink Devices Inc. (Independent), est. 2000 (Niles, Illinois) has a core business in the design and manufacture of III-V epitaxial material used in cellular phones and other wireless devices; nLight Inc. (Independent) est. 2000 (headquartered in Vancouver, WA) focuses on specialty high-power semiconductor lasers developing material solutions for medical, defense, and semiconductor solar applications. Intraband LLC (UW-M Start-up company), est. 2007 (Madison, WI) is an early-stage startup with the objective of commercializing the quantum cascade laser (QCL) technologies.
