2010 R&D 100 Winner
Typical semiconductor substrate layers are made of silicon, germanium, or gallium arsenide. Most of these are manufactured with polycrystalline microstructures that limit minimum thickness and prohibit flexibility. Single-crystal wafers are thinner, but are too expensive to make.
Flexible, Large-area, Single-Crystal-like, Semiconductor Substrates, developed by TEXMAT, Knoxville, Tenn., and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., are the first epitaxial-ready semiconductor wafer layers to offer flexibility along with a low cost of manufacture.
TEXMAT achieves the flexibility through a proprietary process that results in a thin, single-crystal semiconductor layer up to 100 m long by 1 m wide. Upon this surface, heteroepitaxial multilayers can be deposited to form a range of epitaxial devices. The substrates can be wrapped around mandrels for high-throughput manufacturing processes, and according to TEXMAT the cost of this material is orders of magnitude less than Si, Ge, and GaAs.
Technology
Flexible semiconductor substrate
Developers
TEXMAT
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Development Team
The Flexible, Large-area, Single Crystal-like, Semiconductor Substrates Development Team:
Amit Goyal
