Every semiconductor research organization in the world is trying to fabricate single monolayers of graphene and pattern them in such a way as to make superior circuitry to silicon. Now, however, some of the IBM researchers who have been growing monolayers of graphene have found another advantageous use for them- -- one that greatly lowers the cost of fabricating blue light emitting diodes (LEDs) from gallium nitride (GaN).
"We grew a single-crystalline gallium nitride [GaN] film on wafer-scale graphene formed on a silicon carbide (SiC) wafer," the self-described "Master Inventor" and Research Staff Member at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights, New York), Jeehwan Kim, told EE Times.
"An entire GaN film was then transferred to a silicon [Si] substrate and the graphene which remained on the SiC wafer was reused multiple times to grow and transfer multiple GaN films. In principle, this method can be much more cost-effective compared to conventional methods where an expensive SiC wafer or sapphire wafer is used only one time to grow GaN films without reusability. Also we found that the film quality is higher on graphene than other substrates (less defect density) Therefore, our technique offers extreme cost-efficiency and better overlaying film quality."
To read more, click here.