Expertise

The CS Hub investigators and associated groups have been carefully selected for their track record in innovation and impact, complementary technical capability and the individual skill sets that can combine to create new solutions to the identified major scientific challenges in manufacturing.
In Brief: the challenge of producing low dislocation CS grown on Si will be tackled by a combination of methods pioneered by Tao Wang and Huiyan Liu. This will build on the recent demonstration of high-performance silicon-based InAs/GaAs QD lasers with CW operation at high temperature (>75 0C) and long lifetime (>100,000 hours) by a collaboration between Cardiff, UCL and Sheffield. Missous and Gillgrass bring experience of wafer scale-up and manufacturing uniformity over these larger wafer sizes. Tasker and Smowton bring world leading expertise in integration and characterisation.
Prof Peter Smowton (Cardiff University) is Director of the EPSRC Future Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing Hub, is one of four Directors of the Institute for Compound Semiconductors (currently Managing Director). He is well connected internationally having had program and general chair roles in the sector leading CLEO and ISLC conferences and as a leading member of the IEEE Photonics Society. His expertise is in compound semiconductor materials, device design, characterisation and integration. He works closely with companies such as IQE, Oclaro and Renishaw and in 2017 won the Insider Individual Impact Business and Education Partnership Award .

Prof Paul Tasker (Cardiff University) leads the university EPSRC “Integration of RF Circuits with High Speed GaN Switching on Silicon Substrates” and the EPSRC “High Performance Buffers for RF GaN Electronics” grants, both of direct relevance to the hub. His expertise is in high frequency design, fabrication and characterisation including development of a MMIC technology platform. He works closely with industry (e.g. Nokia, Cree, MAcom, Selex, QinetiQ), has 4 patents on non-linear RF measurement and co-founded spin out company Mesuro Ltd (revenue > £2.5M and acquired by Focus Microwaves in 2015).
 

Prof David Wallis holds a joint chair in compound semiconductors at the universities of Cardiff and Cambridge and is a EPSRC Manufacturing fellow. His expertise is in the growth and Characterisation of III-V semiconductor materials. For most of his career he has worked in industry and between 2011 and 2015 lead the transfer of GaN on Si growth technology from a university spin out to Plessey Semiconductors. He is also currently treasurer for the UK Nitrides Consortium and helps to organise the UKNC annual conference which attracts more than 100 researchers in the field of Nitrides.

Prof Mohamed Missous FREng (University of Manchester) is Professor of Semiconductor Materials and Devices. His expertise includes Molecular Beam Epitaxy of Arsenides and ultra-high sensitivity sensors with a track record in developing manufacturable processes and technology transfer e.g. commercialisation by e2V Ltd of 77GHz Gunn diodes for Cruise Control systems in BMW and Audi cars. He leads an STFC, Innovate UK and EPSRC (£2M) programme in CS Sensors. He is founding director of two spin out companies (Advanced Hall Effect Sensors and Integrated Compound Semiconductors Ltd) and received the 2014 Royal Society Brian Mercer award for Innovation.

Prof Huiyun Liu (UCL) is Chair of Semiconductor Photonics. He first demonstrated Quantum Dot (QD) lasers on Ge substrates; 1300-nm QD laser on Si substrate; III-V/Si laser with >100,000 h lifetime and has >300 papers including record low threshold current density for multi-layer CS QD lasers. He is currently leading the CS epitaxial growth on silicon for 3 relevant EPSRC grants, “Energy and the Physical Sciences: Semiconductor III-V QD Solar Cells on Silicon Substrates”, “Silicon based QD light sources and lasers”, and “Nanoelectronic Based Quantum Physics- Technology and Applications”. He works with industry, including Huawei, Oclaro, DSTL, Sharp, IQE and Total. He has 3 patents and is co-founder of spin out company, Gasp Solar, a maker of CS on Silicon solar cells.

Prof Alwyn Seeds FREng, FIEEE (UCL) is Professor of Optoelectronics. He pioneered the research area of microwave photonics, leads the EPSRC Coherent THz Systems Programme Grant and was awarded the Gabor Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics in 2012. He is an inventor on 16 patents and is co-founder of Zinwave Ltd, which is now the third largest supplier of wireless over fibre systems in the world and was acquired by McWane Technologies Inc. in 2014.

Prof Sir Michael Pepper FRS, FREng (UCL) (h-index 55, 8 patents) is Pender Professor of Nanoelectronics and has received the Royal Society’s Bakerian Prize Lectureship, Hughes and Royal Medals. He is co-founder and Scientific Director of THz technology spin-off company TeraView. He is a former member of General Board and Council of Cambridge University and Council for Industry and Higher Education.

Prof Tao Wang holds a chair in advanced Opto-electronics. His expertise is in III-nitride semiconductors and devices including epitaxial growth/overgrowth, device fabrication, nanofabrication, characterisation, structure design, integration.  He is Director of the Sheffield Centre for GaN Materials and Devices and co-Director of the joint Sheffield-Nanjing Research Centre for Wide-bandgap Optoelectronics. So far, he has >350 publications and holds 18 patents. His work has led to two spin-out companies.

These staff are supported by academics Rick Smith & EPSRC Manufacturing Fellow Jon Willmott (University of Sheffield), Max Migliorato (University of Manchester), Jiang Wu (UCL), Roberto Quaglia (Cardiff University) and Senior Research Fellows Siming Chen (UCL), and Sang Soon Oh (Cardiff University) covering design, nitride fabrication, RF electronics and characterisation and growth of CS on Si.
For further detail on the expertise within the CS Hub, please visit our Research pages.