Ultraviolet light-emitting diode (UV LED) maker Sensor Electronic Technology Inc (SETi) of Columbia, SC, USA has been honored with the Tibbetts Award for the role it has played in R&D for the US Government under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
Picture: (left to right) Roland Tibbetts, Karen Mills (SMA Administrator), Remis Gaska, Sean Greene (Associate Administrator of Investment and Innovation), Michael Shur.
In a ceremony held at the White House, the award was presented by Karen Mills (the US Small Business Administrator) to Dr Remis Gaska and Dr Michael Shur, who founded SETi in 1999 to develop III-nitride based electronic and optoelectronic devices.
Named after Roland Tibbetts (who was instrumental in developing the SBIR program), the Tibbetts Awards are presented to companies and individuals from all over the USA who are ''beacons of promise and models of excellence in high technology''. Winners are selected on the basis of the economic impact of their technological innovation, and on whether they have met federal R&D needs, encouraged diverse participation in technological innovation, and increased the commercialization of federal research.
Under programs funded by SBIR and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), SETi developed proprietary technology that led to the development of UV LEDs with peak emission wavelengths ranging from 230nm through 365nm. The firm has previously been honored for its innovation by DARPA, when it was named in their 2007 Success Reports; it has also received the PRISM Awards, presented by SPIE and Photonics Media in 2009 for the Best Photonics Product; it has received the Best of Columbia award in 2009; and has twice been selected as a finalist in the IET Innovations awards.
SETi has more than 100 patents covering materials, devices and applications, many of which were the result of US government-backed development under SBIR funding. The firm says that it continues to further its device technology and develop new applications of UV LEDs through multi-agency programs. It recently announced external quantum efficiency (EQE) of more than 10% in a 275nm LED thanks to DARPA's Compact Mid-Ultraviolet Technology (CMUVT) program in collaboration with US Army Research Laboratories (ARL).
