SUMMARY
While LED lighting sources have huge advantages over conventional sources, high fabrication and limited brightness have limited adoption of solid state lighting outside certain niche applications such as traffic lights. Lehigh University has developed a new method to help overcome these issues. This technology is an abbreviated growth mode for III-Nitride compounds, such as GaN and InGaN, for micro and opto-electronic applications with reduced processing time and higher quality. This results in cost reduction and improved device Internal Quantum Efficiency.
The method depends on the use of sapphire substrate that has a surface covered with a pattern of nanometer-scale bumps. Using this substrate, LED device fabrication is actually simplified and reduced in duration, while at the same time improvements in the device efficiency can be attained. The approach can be adopted inexpensively, without any changed required to the processing equipment or materials used other than the specialized substrate. The necessary substrates can be made in large batches, therefore keeping the additional cost per wafer low.
Lehigh Tech ID# 112009-01
THE MARKET
The SSL market is predicted to reach $33 billion by 2013, growing annually at over 10%. This market is an umbrella market for LEDs, OLEDs, and PLEDs. LED technologies make up a majority of this market ($5.08 billion), with a growth rate of over 24%. Additionally, 22% of the United States electricity is consumed by lighting, which costs consumers over $50 billion each year. SSL technologies have the potential to reduce this consumption by up to six times less. This potential has led to increased market need, funding resources and science centers dedicated to SSL developments, such as the $46 million Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) for solid-state lighting science funded by the Department of Energy.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Lehigh University is interested in identifying an industry partner to license this technology.