This results in superior thermal management, precise wavelength targeting, and extended operational life – a potential game changer for water purification, medical sterilisation, and industrial curing systems.
Until recently, deployment of ultraviolet LEDs (particularly in the deep UV range – below 275nm) was problematic. Conventionally fabricated components struggled to provide the exacting levels of performance required in applications such as water purification, medical sterilisation, and surface disinfection. Silanna UV's innovative approach to LED semiconductor fabrication however, now offers reliability, power efficiency and wavelength accuracy transcending conventional component limitations.
Breaking Through Traditional Limitations
The semiconductor industry's conventional approach to UV LED fabrication using highly aluminium-doped bulk crystal AlGaN has resulted in barriers to advancement, particularly in the deep UV below 240nm, where high aluminium concentrations result in unreliability, so creating a technical ceiling that has limited innovation in critical applications.
Silanna UV's Short-Period Super Lattice (SPSL) technology improves UV LED fabrication by using alternating molecular layers of AlN and GaN of varying thickness, controlled by the deposition time, yielding improved efficiency, and with fewer defects compared to conventional AlGaN. While both use aluminium, gallium and nitrogen, the high aluminium concentrations needed for deep UV in bulk AlGaN leads to low yield and high costs. By contrast the SPSL approach creates a more reliable crystalline structure while simultaneously enabling impressive performance characteristics across multiple parameters.
Strategic integration of SPSL architecture provides immediate commercial benefits for system developers.
Enhanced Thermal Management
Improved efficiency reduces internal heating of the LED, slowing heat-induced aging whilst also enabling more compact designs with simplified thermal solutions thus lowering component costs and system complexity.
Precise Wavelength Control
SPSL LEDs offer precise wavelength accuracy, crucial for applications such as water purification (230-265nm) where optimal effectiveness with minimal energy consumption is a requirement.
Optimal Performance
Improved quantum efficiency in SPSL LEDs is quantified by 35-45% increase in output for the same power input. This enhances both overall system performance and energy efficiency, essential for achieving stringent hygiene standards in sterilisation applications.
Extended Operational Life
A notable reduction in crystalline defects results in more stable structures with consistent long-term performance. This improved reliability equates to longer service intervals, improved system uptime, and reduced maintenance requirements, something particularly valuable where continuous functionality is essential for safety and productivity.
Superior Light Emission
Unlike conventional materials facing challenges with vertical extraction, SPSL LEDs maintain predominantly vertical emission across the spectrum. This fundamental advantage enables higher power at ultrashort wavelengths, demonstrated by Silanna UV's new 235nm LED achieving 2% wall plug efficiency (WPE) with 3mW output at 20mA.
Summary
SPSL technology delivers demonstrable performance improvements across various sectors:
- Medical sterilisation systems benefit from reduced cycle times, increasing throughput while maintaining infection control.
- Water purification units achieve higher efficiency with lower energy consumption, supporting sustainable and cost-effective operation
- Industrial curing gains precision and faster processing through optimised spectral output, and analytical instruments reach lower detection thresholds, enhancing measurement capability.
For system integrators, SPSL-based LEDs provide a high-performance solution readily compatible with standard drivers and optics, meeting the precision and efficiency requirements of next-generation UV systems.
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