Research into developing the most important semiconductor since silicon is going to benefit from a £1.2 million new grant awarded by the ESPRC to the University's Centre for Gallium Nitride. The grant will fund a three-year research collaboration to build Gallium Nitride (GaN)-based products with Thomas Swan Scientific Equipment and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).
Research into developing the most important semiconductor since silicon is going to benefit from a £1.2 million new grant awarded by the ESPRC to the University's Centre for Gallium Nitride. The grant will fund a three-year research collaboration to build Gallium Nitride (GaN)-based products with Thomas Swan Scientific Equipment and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).
GaN emits an intense blue light when an electric current is passed through it, making it the first bright blue, light-emitting diode (LED), but it uses just 20 per cent of the power consumed by an equally bright conventional bulb. GaN has a number of applications that could revolutionise how much energy we use every day. It can be used to create white light LEDs, which burn a fraction of the energy used by conventional, incandescent light bulbs.
Replacing 50 per cent of the lighting in the UK with GaN LEDs, would save the energy produced by five medium-sized power stations and eliminate all the CO2 they emit. This new lighting will be available in the next five years. GaN can also be used to make transistors that are both more powerful and faster than conventional silicon transistors, which could revolutionise wireless communications, including mobile phones, military radar systems and satellite transmitters.
In addition, GaN can create new, 'sharper' lasers, which will allow an entire music collection to be stored on a single disc.
GaN LEDs can be used to detect the early stages of cancer because certain non-toxic drugs attach preferentially to cancer cells, and these drugs glow red when illuminated by specially tuned violet light from GaN LEDs. Such GaN lighting will also enable surgeons to know when to stop cutting when they remove a cancerous tumour, which is not possible currently.
Tiny clusters of GaN containing only a few hundred atoms can be grown, creating quantum dots, which have exciting applications in nanotechnology. It is possible that ultrafast computers called quantum computers, 10,000 times faster than present day computers, could be constructed from GaN quantum dots.
Professor Colin Humphreys, who is heading up the project, said:
"Gallium nitride has an immense number of applications that will effect everyday life. We are pleased to be awarded such a generous grant to continue to explore the capabilities of this revolutionary semiconductor."
The Chief Executive of EPSRC, Professor John O'Reilly, said:
"It is great to see that continued EPSRC support for GaN research in Professor Humphreys' world-class team at Cambridge is producing such exciting outcomes of importance to industry."
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