PREFACE

This proceedings volume is the record from a Materials Research Society symposium covering the full spectrum of activity in the GaN and related materials arena. These semiconductors are finding applications in full-color displays, high density information storage, white lighting for indoor or backlit displays, solar-blind UV detectors, high power/high temperature electronics, and for covert under-sea communications. The symposium contained a plenary session with talks on laser diodes, electronic devices, substrates, etching, contacts and piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties. This was followed by sessions on laser diodes and spectroscopy; conventional growth and characterization; epitaxial lateral overgrowth and selective growth; theory, defects, transport and bandstructure; surfaces, theory, processing; LEDs, UV detectors and optical properties; electronic devices and processing; quantum dots; novel growth, doping and processing, and finally, rare-earth doping and optical emission. A highlight was a panel discussion, involving a report on high temperature electronics in Japan and the US, conducted by a panel involving university and government scientists (V. Dmitriev, P. Chow, S. DenBaars, M. Shur, E. R. Brown, J. C. Zolper, C. W. Litton and J. M. Zavada).

The progress in laser diodes was highlighted by the announcement of commercialization of this technology shortly after the meeting, and much progress was reported in growth of thick layers on patterned substrates by various methods, leading to lower overall defect concentrations and improved current -voltage and reliability characteristics. The rapidly increasing market for blue/green LEDs was noted by the entry of a number of new companies into the field. While these emitter technologies continue to be dominated by MOCVD material, there were exciting reports of UV detectors and HFET structures grown by MBE with device performance at least as good as by MOCVD. The understanding of carrier confinement mechanisms in lasers and LEDs continues to mature, and there is a much clearer picture of the effects of both defects and residual impurities such as H, C and O.

The symposium was extremely well-attended,and was the largest MRS meeting in this series. Special mention should be made of the pre-symposium tutorial taught by Prof. M. Shur, which again broke all previous attendance records for the MRS. The two poster sessions were also a source of information exchange, and proved very popular with attendees.

S. J. Pearton
C. P. Kuo
A. F. Wright
T. Uenoyama

December 1998