Sixteen years GaN on Si

GaN, the basis of high brightness LEDs and high power, high frequency FET's has developed to the second important semiconductor after Si. Although epitaxial growth of thin layers on sapphire has been developed already in the late 1980s the growth on Si, which offers lower cost and new application fields, was hampered mostly by thermal mismatch and chemical incompatibility leading to destructive melt-back etching. In the last 16 years, GaN on Si has developed from a niche academic work to part of GaN mainstream technology. This article gives an overview on the breakthrough developments and different methods to solve the problems associated with GaN growth on Si as well as an overview on the different application fields. (C) 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim