3-dimensional heteroepitaxy on deeply patterned substrates in a maskless process
Read moreAbout us
Pilegrowth Tech Today
Pilegrowth Tech is a start-up company aimed at engineering substrate solutions to the problems arising in heteroepitataxial growth with significant lattice misfit, or thermal misfit.
Read moreA short history
This technology, originally developed in 2012 by Hans von Kaenel and Leonida Miglio is intended to doctor lattice-misfit defects and thermal-misfit wafer bowing with cracks in heteroepitiaxial depositions, as reported in different papers and patent families.
Read moreScience and Technology
Scientific background
The three-dimensional growth of columnar and facetted crystals on top of the pillars is generated by a non-conformal epitaxy, as provided by a short diffusion length of the deposited species and the lateral shielding of the gaseous flow by a dense array of pillars. Tens of papers concerning Ge, GeSi, GaAs, and 3C-SiC on deeply patterned Si substrates have been published in the last ten years.
Read moreTechnology and applications
Depending on pattern design and growth conditions, highly dense monocrystals, as tall as tens of micrometers, in some cases, can be grown for photonic and optoelectronic applications. Otherwise, their merging in a continuous layer at very small thermal misfit can be suitably induced, for micro- and power-electronic applications. Any further application can be conceived by innovating the device architecture in arrays.
Read morePatents and IPR
Intellectual Property Rights
Three families of patents, or patent applications, constitute the present IPR of the company. The original one (Dislocation and stress management by mask-less processes using substrate patterning and methods for device fabrication), with priority date April 26, 2011; a second one (Method for industrial manufacturing of a semiconductor structure with reduced bowing), with priority date April 27, 2016; and the most recent Italian patent application (Method for producing a freestanding and stress-free epitaxial layer starting from a disposable substrate patterned in etched pillars array), deposited on November 5, 2020.
Read moreCollaborations and Partners
