Wafer Bonding for Embedding Active Regions with Relaxed Nanofeatures

Brief Description

An alternative method, using wafer bonding, to connect relaxed nanostructures in the active region with separately grown material.

Background

Relaxed active areas are advantageous for semiconductor device systems that experience high lattice mismatch in epitaxial growth. Current approaches to using relaxed active areas in III-V materials for LEDs and laser diodes consist of material growth over relaxed material. However, this method reduces the device’s performance because it deteriorates the crystal quality of the device’s other components.

Description

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have developed an alternative method using wafer bonding to connect relaxed nanostructures in the active region with separately grown material. The nanostructures act as the contact points for the two wafers bonding and do not need to be planar, unlike conventional wafer bonding techniques. This unique process produces greater device performance and higher quality device materials by utilizing relaxed active areas.

Advantages

• Enhanced device performance
• Improved material quality
• Wafer bonding technique is already commercially viable

Applications

• Semiconductor device systems
• III-V materials for LEDs
• Laser diodes for long wavelength emissions

Patent Status