"Discovery and development of advanced materials technology can be a Polish specialty in the EU research", said experts at a press conference concluding the conference Fumat 2011, which ended on 23 September in Warsaw.
http://www.nauka.gov.pl/scientific-research/polish-science/science/sci ence/artykul/advanced-materials-may-be-polish-specialty-in-the-eu/
Marco Falzetti, Chairman of the European Technology Platform for Advanced Engineering Materials and Technologies EuMAT, said that cooperation with Polish scientists in the field of technology of new materials is very close, and "they significantly contribute to the work of EuMAT". Falzetti added that the advanced materials and technologies will be "one of the main pillars " of the new EU Framework Programme, and EuMAT will then become one of the centres of cooperation that will enable the development of new technologies and production of new construction materials for health care or transport.
I have not been following the state of art of Material Science in Poland, so I hope some of you would be able to set me straight. But few stories caught my eye last year, which I'd like to share. First, there is a Polish company called Ammono (ammono.com), which - according to this [1] article in IEEE Spectrum - produces "The World's Best Gallium Nitrides"
A little Polish company you've never heard of is beating the tech titans in a key technology of the 21st century.
Large crystals of pure gallium nitride (GaN) are the key to violet lasers, on which the optoelectronics industry increasingly depends. The examples are optical discs in Blu-ray players and in the latest game machines, power-handling circuitry in hybrid electric vehicles, or better LEDs.
So far, though, gallium nitride crystals of good size and archangelic purity have been beyond the grasp of all but one of the companies that have worked for years to create them. That company’s based not in Japan, Korea, or even the United States, but in Poland. Meet Ammono, the greatest success story in materials science you’ve never heard of.
Photos: Robert Laska
GALLIUM DUST: [Left] Ammono’s first gallium nitride crystals were tiny, and metallic impurities gave them a brownish tint.
GALLIUM JEWEL: [Right] After nearly two decades of refinement, Ammono’s growth technique now yields wondrously fine hexagonal crystals up to 2 inches across.
High power blue laser on AMMONO’s substrate
InGaN laser diode (LD) mini-arrays with unprecedented power levels have been grown by the TopGaN company on the basis of Ammono GaN substrates. Polish Academy of Science, Institute of High Pressure Physics Unipress participated also in the project.
Mini-arrays consisting of 3 or 5 emitters processed on to a single chip were fabricated. The optimal performance was achieved for the 3 emitter array, which attained 2.5 W of optical power at 408-412 nm. The LDs were grown on low-dislocation density GaN substrates that were made by Ammono’s ammonothermal growth method.
TopGaN Ltd was founded in January 2001 by the group of researchers from the Institute of High Pressure Physics in Warsaw (Poland) and by Mr Andrzej Kasprowiak - an investor interested in the high technology sector.
The company focuses on the development of a new generation of nitride laser diodes using many innovative technologies including:
- Fabrication of GaN wafers by High Nitrogen Pressure Solution (HNPS) growth, having unique plasmonic features and very high crystalline quality
- a patented PAMBE epitaxial growth method
- custom designed laser diode arrays.
http://topgan.eu
[1] The World's Best Gallium Nitride, http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/the-worlds-best-gall ium-nitride
[2] Blue Laser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laser
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