Solar-Tectic of Briarcliff Manor, New York, said that it has a new backplane technology, which it calls LT1CS (for Low Temperature single Crystal Silicon). In the material, the silicon crystals are highly oriented c-axis aligned or “textured” and the crystals are said to be ‘large grained’. Electron mobility is claimed to be better than IGZO and is said to be similar to C-axis aligned IGZO (CAAC-IGZO), but using silicon rather than indium and gallium. The process temperature is claimed to be low enough to allow processing on
Solar-Tectic said that its technology can use III-V materials like GaN and that may be helpful in trying to develop microLEDs.
The ST technology was recently patented (see US patents 9,054,249 B2; US 9,722,130 B2; and US 8,916, 455 B2). Relevant papers have also been published demonstrating the core technology (see “Highly textured silicon (111) crystalline thin-film on buffered soda-lime glass by e-beam” and “Textured (111) crystalline silicon thin film growth on fligexible glass by e-beam evaporation“). The company also said that a patent has also recently been granted for III-V/silicon thin-film LEDs and transistors (see US 9,818,964).
The company’s technology is based primarily on the inventions of the late Dr. Praveen Chaudhari, recipient of the U.S. National Medal of Technology (1995)
