Epitaxy: enabling technology
IQE's epitaxial products can be found at the very heart of many of today's high tech devices and gadgets.
Without the III-V wafers that IQE produces there would be
no CDs, DVDs, high speed internet, smartphones, satnav
or wifi.
As we move away from outdated 20th century technologies for lighting and energy supplies, IQE's products also open up a whole new array of new products dedicated to the efficient generation and use of electricity in the form of concentrator photovoltaic solar cells (CPVs) and high efficiency solid state lighting (SSL: LEDs).
What is epitaxy?
Epitaxy is the first stage in the process of manufacturing the critical components in a wide range of devices from mobile handsets to solar cells and LEDs.
The word epitaxy is derived from the greek words for surface and axis and relates to the atomic growth of a substance on to the surface of a substrate in a way that ensures the atoms are aligned in a perfect crystal lattice. It is a form of atomic engineering or "nanotechnology"
IQE produces atomically engineered layers of crystalline materials containing a variety of semiconductor materials such as gallium, arsenic, aluminium, indium and phosphorous.
The layers are grown onto a crystal substrate or wafer and the finished product containing the wafer and its atomically modified surface is known as an epiwafer.
It
is the number of layers, their atomic composition and the
order in which they are grown that determines the precise
physical, electronic and optical properties of the material.
An epiwafer can include up to 300 individual layers, each of which could be as little as two atoms thick.
IQE's intellectual property (IP) or know-how is the science and technology behind the materials and the way in which the atomic structures can be manufactured to yield the wide range of electronic and optical properties that are essential in today's electronically enabled age.
Customers fabricate IQE's epiwafers into "chips" which then form the heart of a variety of products.
To find out how IQE's products power a range of technologies, select one of the icons at the top of the page (wireless, solar, electronics, opto).