News: Microelectronics
1 July 2022
Fraunhofer IAF inaugurates new MOCVD and laboratory research buildings
On 30 June, Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF in Freiburg, Germany officially inaugurated two new buildings with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting by executive director professor Rüdiger Quay, Freiburg’s mayor for construction professor Martin Haag, and managing director of Freiburg Wirtschaft Touristik Messe GmbH & Co KG (FWTM) Hanna Böhme.
In addition to representatives of various Fraunhofer institutions, invited guests included Gabriele Rolland from the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg, professors Stefan Glunz and Frank Balle from the Institute for Sustainable Technical Systems (INATECH) and professors Jürgen Wöllenstein, Matthias Kuhl and Stefan Rupitsch from the Institute for Microsystems Technology (IMTEK) at the University of Freiburg, as well as the buildings’ architects Ann-Kathrin Goerke and Matthias Solbach.
Picture: Fraunhofer IAF’s new research buildings were officially inaugurated on 30 June with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting by executive director professor Rüdiger Quay, Freiburg’s mayor for construction professor Martin Haag, and managing director of Freiburg Wirtschaft Touristik Messe (FWTM) Hanna Böhme.
Financial support from the German federal government, the state of Baden-Württemberg and the German Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg) has funded construction of a new laboratory building as well as a new hall for metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), enabling Fraunhofer IAF to intensify its activities in optoelectronic metrology and quantum sensing as well as materials science.
“The application laboratories for quantum sensing and laser spectroscopy significantly expand the opportunities for cooperation with partners from industry and research,” notes Dr Martin Walther, head of research infrastructure.
“The new MOCVD hall has also enabled us to enlarge our epitaxy equipment park, further increase the level of material quality and reproducibility, and at the same time ensure significantly more efficient operation,” says executive director professor Rüdiger Quay. “The buildings exceed the requirements of the German Energieeinsparverordnung EnEV (Energy Saving Ordinance) and feature CO2-neutral construction elements. This is an important signal for our plan to achieve climate neutrality by 2030 together with the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.”
Optimal research conditions and sustainable construction
The new laboratory building has a total of 22 labs on 900m2 of floor space, designed in terms of building dynamics for the use of highly vibration-sensitive equipment. They comply with the vibration limit lines B and C of the so-called Vibration Criteria (VC) and are thus suitable, for example, for the operation of microscopes with magnifications of up to 1000 times or lithography and inspection equipment with structure widths of up to 3µm and 1µm, respectively. In the long term, this ensures the use of demanding measurement technology for ever smaller structures and allows intensive R&D of quantum sensors such as scanning probe, wide-field and laser threshold magnetometers as well as laser-based sensor technology and innovative semiconductor lasers.
Picture: Fraunhofer IAF has expanded its research infrastructure for semiconductor technologies with a new MOCVD hall (front) and a new laboratory building (back).
The newly constructed MOCVD hall provides space for five systems, which will enable Fraunhofer IAF to expand its epitaxial activities in high-bandgap semiconductors in particular. The four existing systems (moved from the cleanroom of the main building) have been joined by a new system specifically for the deposition of aluminium gallium nitride (AlGaN) with high aluminium content. The new system reaches temperatures of up to 1400°C, which has a positive effect on crystal quality and homogeneity. Advantages also result from the hall’s equipment, which has autonomous regenerative processing systems, enabling more energy-efficient and sustainable manufacturing processes.
At 388kWh/(m2a) for the laboratory building and 245kWh/(m2a) for the MOCVD hall, the primary energy requirements of both new buildings are below the EnEV requirements for comparable buildings. In addition, the flooring installed in both buildings is particularly environmentally friendly and will be recycled at the end of its functional life. The German-manufactured floor coverings are made from natural raw materials, and their entire production cycle has a neutral CO2 footprint. In the MOCVD hall alone, 47t of CO2 have been offset by the flooring.
