Better Living Enabled by Better Materials

Well, maybe not the entire world but it is getting seriously important! I enjoyed the article at http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/02/move-over-silicon-gallium-nitride-chips-are-taking-over/ from which I paste: Above: Alex Lidow, CEO of Efficient Power Conversion Image Credit: Dean Takahashi ilicon chips have had a decades-long run as the foundation for modern electronics. But a new kind of chip, based on the compound material gallium nitride (GaN), promises to unseat silicon because it has higher performance, less power consumption, and lower cost. That might sound crazy, given the economies of scale for silicon, which has been an almost perfect semiconductor device that can both conduct or block electrical signals. Many people scoffed in early years at alternative materials such as gallium arsenide, which proved to be too expensive. Gallium nitride’s assault on silicon is just in time for the 50th anniversary of Moore’s Law, the prediction by Intel chairman emeritus G...

No more needs to be said.

It seems that the United States is waking up to the gallium nitride opportunity, albeit 2-decades after Japan did. Soraa is really hot - check them out at www.soraa.com.  They have LEDs made on bulk GaN that are just as bright as the world's best which are made on sapphire, but Soraa's are 10x smaller!  Now that's what I'm talking about!

I can't help myself - see  http://www.grist.org/article/Newt-Gingrich-is-an-idiot .

NASA has published a really great and condense explanation of global cooling and global warming trends through the years and looking forward. Check it out at  http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/200711_temptracker/ . It is only 2 (web) pages and does a great job of summarizing major trend issues, including CO2, volcanoes, and greenhouse gases.

Because crystalline SiC materials development got real with early ONR and DARPA funding, SiC power electronics development has led to some great performances and the beginnings of commercialization, with SiC device results slowly getting closer to the theoretical limits of the SiC materials system. However, we have known for decades that GaN should do better than SiC, and now that others, with Japan leading, are investing heavily in crystalline GaN materials technology, GaN devices are being demonstrated that surpass the theoretical limits of SiC devices. This article about R&D at Hosei Universiy and Hitachi Cable is yet another example of how crystalline GaN substrates enable us to cross that theoretical SiC performance limit. With all else being equal, we would then predict that GaN is going to continue to get better and better and the day may be soon in which all GaN devices perform better than all SiC devices. But what about the price and the influence of other market dynam...

Cissoid is a company that appreciates the benefits of wide bandgap semiconductors for high performance applications in general, including those that must continue to perform at high temperatures. They are taking advantage of the fact that GaN has superb, and SiC almost as superb, a Baliga Figure of Merit, much better than Silicon itself.

This makes me very sad.  Politicians argue while very bad things happen.

Mother Jones has Blogs that are read-worthy.

There is a nice article at http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Can-a-Disruptive-Solar-Technology-Topple-First-Solar/ discussing the many competing technologies for harvesting energy from the sun. A lot of bets have been placed. Some of those require gallium nitride (GaN), most don't. A very new report of new research results makes GaN look even more interesting for solar cell applications - see http://www.getsolar.com/News/California/Solar-Panels/Breakthrough-Solar-Technology-Could-Double-Cell-Efficiency-19918012 where we find the article: " Breakthrough Solar Technology Could Double Cell Efficiency" and see that the materials play is based on cesium-coated GaN. Very cool!!!

Remember what Al Gore said in his book "An Inconvenient Truth?" He pointed out that most scientists agree, or was it all of them, yet the politicians seem relatively evenly divided on the issue of whether global warming was indeed occurring? I figured the heck with human interpretation: lets just see what is happening to the Polar Ice Cap. You can get the latest Wikipedia thoughts at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_ice_cap and then you get introduced to an interesting term "Arctic Shrinkage" and you can read more about the latter at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shrinkage . But again, the heck with interpretation, lets just look at the pictures. Go to http://www.google.com/images?q=Arctic%20shrinkage&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1680&bih=933 and see for yourself. Sincerely yours, Captain Nitride

Got Medieval

I just wanted to share the fact that I am so happy about the upcoming US presidential election! Let me explain: My several scientist friends have independently provided me with odds over who is electable and when I compare each of their opinions I find that together they agree that the following three candidates are by far the only reasonably electable candidates for the next US president: Barack Obama Hillary Clinton John McCain Heck, this is wonderful since each one of these candidates is estimated by those same scientists to be approximately 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) times more likely to take good decisions for the US citizens and indeed for the entire planet! And good decisions ahead bodes well for increased deployment of gallium nitride solutions since they will help us a lot in driving improved electrical efficiency for a broad range of commercial applications, including automotive and renewable energy electricity management systems. The Bush Years of Evil (BYE) ar...

Hello everyone! I am excited to find out that the US Department of Energy has established something called the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership which you can read about at http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/about/partnerships/freedomcar/ . If you tunnel in a bit you find out that there are strong thoughts that wide bandgap semiconductors will find their way into future automobiles because of their ability to enable higher electrical efficiency while simultaneously operating at higher temperatures which then enables reduced cooling needs. For example, see pages 19 & 20 of http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/program/eett_roadmap.pdf . You see, today's hybrid electric vehicles like the Toyota Prius require an extra water cooling line to cool off that hot set of silicon electronics for the inverter and other parts of the electronics helping the hybrid do its thing. Silicon gets very hot because it wastes so much electricity. This is very cool for gallium nitr...

Dear Friend, Welcome to the blog for III-Nitride Semiconductors, or III-N Semiconductors. III-N Semiconductors represent a new set of crystalline materials that have the potential to penetrate our lives in many ways. III-N Semiconductors are all around in the form of ultra-violet (UV), blue, green, and white light emitting diodes ( LEDs ) and also violet/blue laser diodes. The commercialization of violet/blue lasers has enabled much higher optical storage densities to be reached such as found in the recently released Sony Playstation 3. There are many other possible uses of III-N Semiconductors, including power electronics, wireless communications, optical fiber communications, water purification, and scientific instrumentation. Right now the total III-N Semiconductor device market is about Five Billion US Dollars ($5B). Over the next couple of decades, the market for III-N Semiconductor devices will grow to over $25B and will encompass many new applications. I encourage you to put yo...