Soraa Receives Lighting Award from U.S. Department of Energy

Soraa, the world’s leader in the development of GaN on GaN LED technology, announced today that it received an award from the U.S. Department of Energy for its outstanding work in the development of high-efficiency m-plane LEDs grown on low-defect density bulk GaN substrates. The company demonstrated a very high peak internal quantum efficiency (IQE of 88%), low efficiency droop (10% from 10Acm-2 to 100A.cm-2) and perfect wavelength stability (up to 200A.com-2) at a wavelength of 450nm LEDs.
“Research and development of LEDs on bulk GaN substrates is one of the critical approaches to the technological development of Solid State Lighting—a sentiment recently echoed by the National Academy of Sciences. We are pleased to recognize Soraa's pioneering work in this area," said Jim Brodrick, Manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solid State Lighting Program.
“We are honored to receive an award from the U.S. Department of Energy and it is a further testament to deep technological expertise that has made us the world’s leader in the development of GaN on GaN LEDs on all planes,” said Mike Krames, CTO of Soraa.
Soraa’s GaN on GaN LEDs handle more current and emit substantially more light (about ten times) per area of LED wafer material than the conventional approach of depositing GaN layers on cheaper foreign substrates like sapphire, silicon carbide or silicon. The company’s GaN-on-GaN technology leverages the advantages of the native substrate, including lower crystal defect densities (by more than a thousand times), which allow reliable operation at very high current densities, the same principle that enabled Blu-ray laser diodes. In addition to improved crystal quality, the native substrate advantages of optical transparency and high electrical and thermal conductivity provide for a very robust, simple LED design for maximum performance. Another advantage of the GaN-on-GaN approach is the flexible choice of crystal growth plane, which has demonstrated advantages in high peak internal quantum efficiency and low-droop LED performance.