The Futures Blue

Scientists began to take an interest in gallium arsenide as a semiconductor material because it generates less heat than silicon and is therefore more suitable for use in supercomputers as well as in the more mundane mobile phone. Silicon and GaAs semiconductors are still the most used, but they have their limitations. GaN semiconductors are ten times more powerful and can carry much more current. They are also a lot more robust. So what can this new material be used for The most obvious use is to provide a new generation of LEDs, 

64) This is a unit of energy used in electronics and is the energy an electron acquires when it is accelerated across a potential difference of 1 volt. 

148 Better Living (III) Minor Metals for Major Advances 

A domestic of GaN is in radiofrequency transistors of the type we rely on in microwave ovens where currently magnetrons are used to generate the heating rays. 

The puzzling thing about GaN is that it shouldn t work as a microelectronic material it is just too riddled with crystal dislocations. If GaAs has more than 1000 dislocations per square centimetre it is unable to function as an LED, yet GaN can have a billion dislocations per square centimetre and still work. How does GaN accomplish this mission impossible As yet there is no dear answer to this question although it has something to do with the interface between the p- and n-forms of the semiconductor. The p-GaN is obtained by adding traces 

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Roy, R., Sackett, P. (2003). Cost engineering The practice and the future. Blue Book Series 2003. USA CASA/SME. 

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