The Cornell research team behind Soctera, a startup developing a more efficient power amplifier, has achieved a breakthrough in their innovation. Researchers in the Duffield College of Engineering doubled the continuous power output of their aluminum nitride-buffer amplifiers, according to a paper published this spring in IEEE Electron Device Letters.
The achievement is significant because amplifiers boost radio signals for critical wireless systems like cell phone towers, radar, and satellites. Most amplifiers for high-frequency, high-power radio frequency applications are currently made with gallium nitride (GaN), a material that performs exceptionally but has the tendency to overheat.
That’s why researchers in the lab of Depdeep Jena and Grace Xing have spent the last decade developing a solution using a combination of GaN and aluminum nitride (AIN) to produce more power without overheating or run cooler while producing the same amount of power. Either way leads to better performance and longer-lasting devices. Reet Chaudhuri, Ph.D. ’21 and Austin Hickman, Ph.D. ’21, both co-authors on the paper, are commercializing the technology as co-founders of Soctera.
In the study, the group’s AIN-buffer devices, which were designed to handle higher voltages, produced 11.7 watts per millimeter while operating continuously — the highest performance ever recorded for this technology across all frequencies. Continuous operation is crucial for military systems that need to transmit signals constantly.
The advancement is a critical commercialization milestone towards implementation in radar systems, satellite communications, and cellular communication systems.