According to Korean media Business Korea, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has announced that a KIST team has successfully developed a new compound that can replace gallium nitride to produce blue LEDs.
Previously, Japan developed a method of manufacturing high-quality gallium nitride for the production of blue LEDs, which are used as core devices in smartphones, displays, electronics and high-frequency devices.
It is reported that the Korean research team used a copper iodide compound (CuI) synthesized from copper and iodine to produce blue LEDs. The researchers said, "We found that copper iodide semiconductors can emit blue light, which is more than 10 times brighter than gallium nitride semiconductors. In addition, they have excellent performance in terms of photoelectric efficiency and long-term device stability."
The copper iodide semiconductor developed by the researchers can be grown on a low-cost, small-defect silicon substrate, so it has the advantage of using a large-sized silicon substrate (300 mm) currently available on the market. In addition, the growth temperature of copper iodide films is similar to that used in silicon-based processes (less than 300 degrees Celsius), so copper iodide films can be deposited without sacrificing performance. Therefore, it can be applied to low-cost, simple silicon semiconductor processes.
The significance of these research results is that by growing high-quality copper-halogen single-crystal copper iodide on a silicon substrate to achieve efficient blue light emission, a new semiconductor material using copper-halogen compounds has been demonstrated for the first time in the world. technology.