When it comes to crystals – and we’re talking about the really big bulk crystals used in electronic/photonic technology platforms for research, development and service – the Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung (IKZ) is the first port of call. Here, from an extremely hot molten mass, they grow isotopically pure silicon crystals to the size of 2-litre bottles for special applications (like the new standard kilogram, for example) and develop refined and new methods for producing conductive oxides of such metals as tin, zinc, and indium in the form of single crystals.
For some years now, the scientists at IKZ have also been intensely researching the material gallium oxide (Ga2O3). This new semiconductor has a relatively large bandgap of 4.8 electron volts, which means – in the field of power electronics especially, where high electric voltages are converted to low voltages – gallium oxide could overtake, at least partly, the stage from the current stars: silicon (Si), silicon carbide (SiC), and gallium nitride (GaN).
Published: Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.
