Patented process builds better semiconductors, improves digital devices

Jim Edgar, university distinguished professor of chemical engineering, has acquired a patent for his invention "Off-axis silicon carbide substrates," that is a technique for building better semiconductors.

The studies may additionally help improve digital devices and could advantage the power electronics industry and manufacturers of semiconductor gadgets.

Electronics are manufactured from semiconductors crystals that ought to be layered perfectly for the electronic tool to paintings.

"it's like a stacked cake separated by means of layers of icing," Edgar said. "whilst the layers of semiconductors do not fit up very well, it introduces defects. Any time there is a illness, it degrades the performance of the tool."

Edgar's research has advanced a better way to construct semiconductors and layer them to limit capability defects -- an essential discovery for producers.

Edgar describes the studies discovery as serendipitous. several years ago, while Yi Zhang, a 2011 doctoral graduate in chemical engineering, changed into working inside the laboratory, she discovered a substrate pattern that turned into very easy.

Collaborative researchers on the state university of new York at Stony Brook and the university of Bristol inside the united kingdom later confirmed the layer's presence and proved that it had fewer defects than on the standard substrate.

"we've got applied this procedure to other systems," Edgar said. "we are running on verifying that it is not just those specific substances we started out with, but that it may be carried out to numerous extraordinary substances."

some of Edgar's today's studies specializes in  exclusive boron compounds: boron phosphide and icosahedral phosphide.