epiray is revolutionizing thin-film technology
The start-up’s method allows for the production of entirely new, extremely pure materials free of impurities
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The Max Planck startup epiray vaporizes substances using high-power lasers to create new materials in ultra-thin layers. This innovation forms the basis for further advancements in thin-film technology in fields such as quantum computing and semiconductor manufacturing.
“Our development is a groundbreaking technology that will be of crucial importance for future industries,” says Wolfgang Braun, CEO of epiray GmbH, describing the business concept. The spin-off is commercializing a novel concept that was developed at the MPI for Solid State Research in Stuttgart and brought to market: Thermal Laser Epitaxy (TLE). This is a technique for depositing high-purity thin films that is particularly relevant to microelectronics—one of the six key technologies at the heart of Germany’s High-Tech Agenda. Instead of heating coils, ion beams, or complex chemical reactions—which in classical thermal epitaxy produce ultra-thin, conductive crystalline layers—in TLE, high-power lasers heat the starting material and the substrate. Since the laser beams can be generated with virtually any power density, arbitrarily high temperatures are possible, allowing for the vaporization of all elements in the periodic table. An animation on the website of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research illustrates how a heterostructure forms layer by layer. The technology makes it possible to create entirely new materials—all within a single, spatially very compact system.
High-precision coating processes
Thanks to the rapid development of laser technology, completely new areas and possibilities have been opened up for thin-film technologies used in microelectronics. In addition to the high temperature, the Max Planck process also differs from other methods in that it enables the production of materials with ultra-high purity. These are indispensable, for example, in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, for optical coatings, or in the field of quantum computing. “Unlike conventional epitaxy methods, our TLE reaches temperatures of up to 2,800 °C. The lasers thus heat the material with pinpoint accuracy, but not the area surrounding the sample,” explains Hans Boschker, CTO and co-founder of epiray. This gives the startup a competitive advantage, as its technology causes no contamination—a unique selling point to date.
epiray builds and sells its own TLE systems in Wernau am Neckar. When the company was spun off from the Solid-State Quantum Electronics Department at the MPI in 2021, its team consisted of three researchers. The number of employees has since grown to seven, partly due to the establishment of a subsidiary in the U.S. They are currently expanding their sales opportunities in England and China.The foundation and prerequisite for this positive development was the unbureaucratic and tailored support provided by the Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, where the idea originated in the Mannhart Department and was brought to fruition. “We plan to expand further and are now in the process of designing production facilities for the industrial manufacture of TLE-generated coatings,” says Braun. This seems to chart a clear path for epiray from basic research to industrial application.
epiray stands for laser-induced epitaxy.
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