Congratulations to Bogdan Spiridon and Simon Fairclough for winning two EPSRC funded Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) grants.
The short-term impact project lead by Bogdan Spiridon relates to the experimental study of porous GaN sensors as part of the development of smart high-performance sensors for harsh environments. The work aims to evaluate the feasibility of fabricating and operating porous GaN sensors and to demonstrate a route towards integrating them with more conventional GaN devices. To achieve these aims, a complementary and interdisciplinary mix of electronic and material design, modelling, and characterisation will be performed, with additional support in custom epitaxial material growth from the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride and in device processing from other collaborators.
The IAA project lead by Simon Fairclough aims to develop a simulation package to support the increasing demand by wafer and LED manufactures for powerful stress and strain management solutions. The finite element simulation package aims to predict the wafer stress during thin-film semiconductor fabrication, which induces wafer bow and even cracking, a major roadblock for further industrial scale lithography and device fabrication. In comparison to existing solutions, the project will also address the new problem of designing wafers that are stress balanced when the support is etched away.
We wish both of our colleagues much successes with their innovative projects, and we are looking forward for strong collaborations within the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride and with our industry partners.
