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Orlando, Fla. (March 3, 2003) - AppliCote Associates, LLC, one of 30 University of Central Florida Technology Incubator companies, was recently awarded an important NASA contract to develop a process to implant atoms in semiconductors.
Carol Ann Dykes, associate director of the UCF Technology Incubator, said AppliCote's technology could serve an integral role in the nation's space program and could be a key to developing manufacturing technologies aboard spacecraft.
AppliCote's founder and president Nat Quick said the NASA contract called a Phase1 SBIR 2002 contract funds improvements to technology that is already under development. AppliCote created a unique patented process compatible with semiconductor materials such as silicon carbide and aluminum that creates conductors and devices far more efficiently than is currently possible.
Called "laser doping," the process enables engineers to diffuse nitrogen and aluminum into the substrate materials to create microcircuits for semiconductors and opto electronic sensing devices.
"With laser doping we can draw circuits lines and dots on a semiconductor about the same way as you draw pictures with an Etch a Sketch," said Quick.
This technology enables the use of advanced wide bandgap semiconductors aboard spacecraft, Quick said. "These wide bandgap semiconductor materials are more resistant than silicon semiconductors to the hostile space environment, which includes radiation, and they can operate at higher temperatures, voltages and frequencies," he said.
Quick explained that Phase I of the NASA contract is worth $70,000 over six months. " We have to demonstrate the concept with bench scale models. Phase II of the contract, worth about $650,000 over two years, will produce prototypes to commercialize the technology.
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