IQE Silicon Compounds Limited Public Funding

"Work at the University of Glasgow has already taken a silicon fabricated mass on a spring fabricated using the same Micro- Electro Mechancal System (MEMS) technology to the gyroscope in all smart phones that determine orientation and improved the sensitivity by a factor of 5000\. This MEMS gravimeter has the potential to be used to search for new oil & gas researches, find buried utilities quickly thereby reducing roadworks and provide an early warning for volcanic eruptions. The project aims to deliver a quantum squeezed light source with pairs of correlated photons that can be used to measure the output of the MEMS gravimeter improve the sensitivity by up to a factor of 40\. The project involves developing a photodetector that can detect single photons which also has applications of rangefinding (determining how far away objects are by bouncing photons off them and timing their return) at wavelengths of light that can see through rain, mist and fog. A key objective is to secure a UK supply chain using IQE to deliver commercial Ge on Si epitaxy for single photon detectors and Optocap to produce chip-scale vacuum packages with fibe-optic access which are essential components for the MEMS gravimeter."

The project aims to address the need for ever higher efficency solar cells for terrestrial energy generation and also for space power applications. The Project intends to extend already leading edge technology and add a novel semiconductor material (SiGeSn) to better enable matching of the absorption wavelengths of the sub-cells of the device to the solar spectrum. By doing this it is anticipated that the conversion efficency of such a device can be increased from ~39% to close to 50% for a 4J multi-sun terrestrial cell, and from ~28% to ~35% for a 1-sun 4J AM0 space solar cell, greatly enhancing power generated per unit area for both application areas.

Awaiting Public Project Summary