Silicon, Germanium, and Gallium Arsenide are the Most Commonly Used Compound Semiconductor Materials

 

                                    Compound Semiconductor Materials Market

Compound semiconductors are semiconductors that are made from two or more elements. The compound semiconductor materials can be in binary, ternary, or quaternary form and are available in a wide range depending upon their form. Silicon, germanium, and selenium are examples of materials that are semiconductors. Among them, silicon has been and still is the most common semiconductor. Compound semiconductors are prepared by alloying different elements, one example is Gallium Arsenide (GaAs).

The elemental semiconductors are those composed of a single species of atoms, such as silicon (Si), and germanium (Ge). Compound semiconductors are semiconductors that are made from two or more elements like GaAs. The commonly available compound semiconductor materials are silicon (Si) and Germanium (Ge). Apart from silicon, there are compound semiconductors that combine Group III and V elements and Group II and VI elements. For example, GaAs, InP, InGaAlP, etc. have been usually used for high-frequency devices and optical devices.

Compound semiconductors have played an important role in the development of optoelectronic devices used in solid-state lighting, high-density data storage, optical communication systems, and photovoltaics. Moreover, Compound Semiconductor Materials Market allow monolithic integration of optoelectronic devices such as lasers, light-emitting diode (LEDs), and photodiodes with micromechanical structures. This enables light generation, transmission, modulation, detection, and much more on a single chip.

Compound semiconductors have unique material properties, such as high breakdown electric fields, high electron mobility, and direct energy bandgap, compared to silicon, enabling high-speed, photonic, and high-power device technologies. CPUs that operate personal computers are also made with compound semiconductors. Several digital consumer products in everyday life such as smartphones or mobile phones, televisions, digital cameras, refrigerators, washing machines, and LED bulbs also use compound semiconductors.

Thus, there is an increase in demand for compound semiconductor materials worldwide. As a result, in July 2022, the United Kingdom added a new compound semiconductor cluster with a mission to highlight and promote the region as a center of excellence for advanced compound semiconductor technology design and manufacture.