News: LEDs
27 October 2023
NS Nanotech awarded $1m grant from NSERC to develop nanoscale LEDs and lasers
NS Nanotech Canada Inc in Montréal, Québec (founded in November 2022) has been awarded a two-year Alliance Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for research into the development of nanoscale light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers. NSERC and parent firm NS Nanotech Inc of Ann Arbor, MI, USA (founded in 2017) have committed a total of CDN$1m in funding and in-kind contributions. The firm co-applied for the grant with professor Songrui Zhao of McGill University in Montréal.
NS Nanotech scientists are collaborating with researchers in professor Zhao’s laboratory in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to fabricate a new generation of nanoscale gallium nitride (GaN) LEDs. Zhao holds numerous patents and is advancing the state of the art in molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and other foundational technologies designed to enable orders-of-magnitude improvements in costs and efficiency over existing LEDs.
“We appreciate this substantial support from the Canadian government for the groundbreaking work initiated by professor Zhao and McGill University in the fast-moving worlds of nanotechnology, LEDs and lasers,” says Seth Coe-Sullivan, CEO & co-founder of NS Nanotech. “Together we are on a mission to develop the world’s first efficient submicron-scale nano-LEDs that will have the potential to disrupt the $120bn global display market.”
NS Nanotech Canada’s R&D Centre (opened in March) is leveraging exclusive licenses to a portfolio of patents owned by the University of Michigan and McGill University to develop the world’s first efficient submicron-scale nano-LEDs and nano-lasers. Commercialization of the laboratory technologies should help to enable next-generation displays for TVs, mobile phones, smart watches, augmented-reality glasses, and other applications including disinfection with ultraviolet light.
This summer, the combined team successfully fabricated nanowires on semiconductor wafers, demonstrating the potential for growth of nanoscale LEDs using standard commercial manufacturing processes. It was the first time that a deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography process had been utilized to grow uniform GaN nanowires on an optically patterned substrate.
“Our collaboration with NS Nanotech’s R&D Centre is accelerating our laboratory work developing an entirely new way of creating light-emitting diodes through growth of nanostructures on semiconductor materials,” says Zhao. “The NSERC Alliance Grant will help enable additional breakthroughs that our combined team expects to deliver over the next two years.”
Picture: Researchers at McGill University and NS Nanotech Canada utilized a standard deep ultraviolet (DUV) optical lithography process on a 4-inch wafter (left) to create a patterned mask (center), enabling uniform growth of submicron-scale gallium nitride nanowires on an optically patterned substrate for the first time. (Source: NS Nanotech Canada).
The NSERC Alliance Grant is the latest milestone in the joint R&D program. Senior students from Zhao’s lab have been collaborating with NS Nanotech scientists since early 2023 following the incorporation of NS Nanotech Canada Inc. In March, NS Nanotech received matching funding from McGill University’s I&P Partnership Program to support its work with the scientists in Zhao’s lab. Also, in September, NS Nanotech Canada opened its first office adjacent to the McGill campus.
“McGill University and Montreal are emerging as important centers of advanced high-technology research, development and commercialization,” reckons NS Nanotech Canada's chief operating officer Derrick Wong. “Academic–industrial collaborations like ours will be an important means of ensuring that groundbreaking semiconductor technologies move successfully ‘from lab-to-fab’ and into commercial markets.”
NS Nanotech reports record performance of red nano-LED
Record sub-micron LED red emission efficiency
McGill University grant to accelerate NS Nanotech’s commercialization of nano-LED technologies
NS Nanotech opens Canadian R&D center in Montréal
www.mcgill.ca/research/innovation/industry/partnership-program
