IQE’s Compound Semiconductor on Silicon Laser Materials for Next-Gen HDD With HAMR

IQE plc. has produced epitaxial wafers combining the optical properties of compound semiconductors with the electronic properties of silicon.

The firm has produced high power lasers that enable increased storage density for next generation HDDs.

In the last 20 years, typical storage capacities for consumer disk drives have increased by 100,000 times from around 20MB to 2TB. The increased capacity has been achieved through research and technological innovation.

In order to maintain such massive increases in capacity whilst maintaining the same footprint, the next generation of disk drives need to be capable of storing more than 1Tb of data per square inch.

Such high density storage is made possible through Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR), where the heat source is a semiconductor laser device emitting 10mW or more of optical power.

Work published in the August 2012 edition of Nature Photonics describes the milestone achievement by Tyndall National Institute (University College Cork), Semprius Inc. and Seagate Technology.

The companies successfully combined a high power compound semiconductor laser structure with a silicon substrate. This used Semprius’ proprietary micro-transfer print technology to print epitaxial layers produced by IQE at its Cardiff manufacturing facility.

The demonstrated level of optoelectonic integration will allow HAMR to meet growing demand in the high performance, high capacity, and low cost storage markets.

Andrew Joel, commercial director for IQE’s optoelectronics division, comments: "IQE has established a leading position in the supply of MOCVD grown epitaxial layers for photonic applications. Programmes such as this demonstrate how we successfully combine our high volume manufacturing capabilities with leading edge research to support our partners through all stages from development through to production."

Further details of this work has been published in the paper, Wafer-scale integration of group III-V lasers on silicon using transfer printing of epitaxial layers, by John Justice et al, in the journal Nature Photonics. DOI:10.1038/nphoton.2012.204