News: Optoelectronics
4 December 2023
BluGlass gains US$1.775m contract with NCSU for laser development
BluGlass Ltd of Silverwater, Australia — which develops and manufactures gallium nitride (GaN) blue laser diodes based on its proprietary low-temperature, low-hydrogen remote-plasma chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD) technology — has signed a US$1.775m (AUS$2.6m) contract with North Carolina State University (NCSU) for BluGlass’ laser development as part of the Commercial Leap Ahead for Wide Bandgap Semiconductors (CLAWS) Hub. This initial contract is for development work in fiscal year 2024 (to end-September) and supports the Microelectronics Commons program.
Established by the US Department of Defense, the Microelectronics Commons is a collaborative capability-building program for defence and dual-use technologies, allocated US$2bn of CHIPS and Science Act funding. Led by NCSU, the CLAWS Hub is one of eight innovation hubs under the Microelectronics Commons program and has been awarded US$39.4m for the base year of performance. The CLAWS Hub comprises seven members, including BluGlass, Coherent, Wolfspeed and General Electric.
“We are thrilled to have secured our first contract as part of the CLAWS Hub, where we will be collaborating with recognised industry leaders to develop and commercialize next-generation wide-bandgap photonic and optoelectronic devices,” says BluGlass’ CEO Jim Haden.
“This core development contract for fiscal year 2024 aligns with BluGlass’ GaN expertise and supports our longer-term product roadmaps, leveraging the benefits of our proprietary RPCVD technology. Our laser development within the CLAWS Hub has the potential to create significant advancements across our target verticals, including materials processing, sensing, quantum applications, and critical defence capabilities. At the same time, our collaboration with NCSU and Microelectronics Commons provides BluGlass with growing revenues and industry profile, specifying us as an approved US commercial manufacturing supplier of GaN laser epitaxy, fabrication, packaging and testing. The collaboration with NCSU as part of the CLAWS Hub has the potential to become a game-changing partnership over the next five years,” he adds.
“Part of the purpose of CLAWS is to accelerate the development of dual-use technologies,” says John Muth, director of the CLAWS Hub, and Distinguished Professor of ECE. “BluGlass is an important part of our roadmap to manipulate UV- and visible-spectrum light on a chip as a photonic integrated circuit. We see the ability to deliver high-quality, reliable single-frequency DFB lasers as well as blue and violet lasers to the DoD and the research community as important first steps toward a wide variety of commercial applications.”
BluGlass a commercial partner in US Microelectronics Commons regional innovation hub CLAWS
