News

11 November 2009

 

Tokuyama expands UV-LED capacity with Aixtron MOCVD reactor

Deposition equipment maker Aixtron AG of Herzogenrath, Germany says that a further AIX 200/4 RF-S MOCVD system has been installed and has started operation at Tokuyama R&D center in Tsukuba, Japan. The reactor was shipped in fourth-quarter 2008 and is being used for the development of AlGaN-based ultra-violet LEDs.

The UV-LED market is currently worth about $100m per year, with the potential to more than double in the next few years. Motivated by the need to replace existing UV light sources, the market could reach $250m in 2015, according to a recent report. In addition, the availability of compact solid-state UV sources with well-defined wavelength ranges could enable many new applications, including solutions for the medical sector.

Higher-power devices will also create opportunities for industrial applications such as the hardening or curing of resins, says Aixtron. However, the most prominent opportunity is the desire to replace costly traditional mercury lamps, which are not only fragile and short-lived but also present an environmental hazard.

The realization of this market potential will be conditional on specific technical advances, especially in the cost-effective growth of AlN-based substrates and epitaxial layers, hence the need for precision MOCVD equipment, says Aixtron.

Since it has the widest direct energy bandgap of all semiconductors (about 6.2eV), AlN suits the development of UV devices (as well as being effective for high-temperature components such as power LEDs and laser diodes for DVD recorders and fiber optics). Moreover, using MOCVD, bandgap engineering can create the optimum alloys and heterostructures for UV-LED applications.

As well as manufacturing chemical products such as ultrapure polysilicon for the electronics industry, Japan-based Tokuyama Corp also has the world’s largest aluminum nitride (AlN) plant.

See related item:

UV LED market to grow to $250m in 2015

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