New Areas of Research and Applications for GaN

Abstract

Gallium nitride, a wide-bandgap semiconductor compound (Eg = 3.4 eV at 300 K), has in the last two decades registered a fascinating increase in the crystalline quality of epitaxial layers determining its leading role in the development of the modern solid-state lighting industry. Exhibiting an impressive number of unique properties such as high breakdown voltage, high switching frequencies, enhanced power efficiency, high electrical conductivity, excellent thermal stability and radiation hardness, over the last decade GaN has been remarkably successful in the area of high-power/high-frequency electronic applications and is now considered the second most important semiconductor material after Si. In this paper, we report on new fields of research and applications of gallium nitride.