Whats all the excitement about GaN?
Group III Nitrides aka “Gallium Nitride” (GaN) or simply “Nitrides” are the underlying compound semiconductor material combination used to produce the headline-making high brightness (HB) blue spectrum light emitting diodes (LEDs) and semiconductor laser diodes (LDs). Before GaN was proven by Shuji Nakamura to provide the performance and lifetimes needed for true blue (including green, blue, violet and ultraviolet) HB-LEDs and LDs, this technology remained in R&D status. Now all the leading lighting application companies are developing GaN based products as replacements for conventional lighting and lasing, including a replacement for standard white lights, compact disks (CDs) and digital versatile disks (DVDs). And that’s just the beginning for GaN! Because of its unique and outstanding wide bandgap qualities, GaN is also growing rapidly as the material technology of choice for HB-LEDs and LDs in the other colors of the spectrum, and for all types of leading edge electronic components
