Though expensive and not easy to manufacture, the use of gallium nitride for solar power electronics and light emitting diodes (LED) may usher in a wave of promising, new technology. Enter Soitec and Sumitomo Electric Industries, announcing Tuesday that they have completed their lab work on producing gallium nitride wafers and are moving into pilot production. Applications for these substrates include high brightness LEDs as well as electric power devices designed for hybrid and fully electric vehicles.

As Ucilia Wang from Renewable Energy World reports, "The use of gallium nitride is more common in LEDs. It also is being investigated by many developers of power conversion devices for solar and the electric grid, a large market in which silicon dominates as the material of choice for devices that adjust the current, voltage and other characteristics of electrical power. Google-backed Transphorm made its public debut last year to discuss its gallium nitride-based power conversion technology."

“Our collaboration with Soitec will open the door to high quality, lower cost GaN substrates,” said Masamichi Yokogawa, Sumitomo Electric’s Executive Officer and General Manager of Compound Semiconductor Material Division. “We have demonstrated that the transfer of a thin layer of our high quality GaN crystal to a carrier wafer is the right approach to make our GaN material accessible for various applications such as power devices and white LEDs. We are expecting the collaboration with Soitec will enable wider use of our high-quality GaN wafer. We believe device manufacturers focused on low unit area costs will find value in the greater functionality of these engineered substrates...”

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