Making LEDs In The Home Fab

A hobbyist fabricator known as Dr. Semiconductor has built functional blue LEDs from gallium nitride epiwafers in a home lab, going beyond typical amateur semiconductor demos by also bonding the chips to a PCB. The process involved a novel 355-nm UV laser etching technique combined with a potassium hydroxide clean-up to expose the n-type layer, followed by photoresist masking and sputtered nickel, silver, and titanium contacts. Chips were diced with the laser and soldered to a PCB using electroplated indium bumps and rosin flux. A cerium-doped YAG phosphor mixed with silicone was applied to convert the blue emission into white light.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2026/08/23/making-leds-in-the-home-fab. 8 Sync News only summarizes and links out; content copyright belongs to the authors and original sources.