SBIR Phase I: Activation and Mobility Profiling for III-V Semiconductor Materials

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be the development of a novel analysis tool for III-V semiconductor compounds with immediate impact in Light Emitting Diode (LED) manufacturing and high-mobility channel device industries. Currently, relatively low yields during epitaxial growth of the LED semiconductor layers cause a significant loss to the industry. High mobility integrated devices and LED epitaxial development teams have access to methods that provide partial information and metrology about the semiconductor layers. The system proposed here will provide complete electrical data on the materials and could cut significantly improve the feedback time, resulting in higher yields and lower manufacturing costs. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will build a prototype system to directly measure high-resolution mobility and activation profiles for III-V semiconductors. Currently, electrical profiling methods do not measure mobility profiles of activated materials that form the basis of the III-V semiconductor device industries. Thus, researchers cannot take into account the effect of process variations on the mobility profiles of the electronic materials. This prevents the complete electrical characterization of the material, and the optimization of the material growth/implantation and activation processes. The anticipated outcome of this project is a functional system that will provide better and quicker analysis on electronic materials.