Ammono was created in 1999 by 4 Polish scientists, Robert Dwiliński, Roman Doradziński, Jerzy Garczyński, Leszek Sierzputowski, and a Japanese concern Nichia Chemical (today Nichia Corporation). In year 2010 Ammono had 60 employees. Seventy percent of shares belonged to the four scientists (the founders) and 30% to Nichia. In 2011 status of Ammono was changed from limited liability company (Sp. z o.o.) to joint stock company. Glencross Company Limited (GHL) became an investor of Ammono in 2012. The shares were then changed to: 59.9 % belonging to 3 of the founders (Dwiliński, Doradziński, and Sierzputowski), 23 % to Nichia, and 17.1 % to GHL. In 2014 rehabilitation proceedings of Ammono were commenced and ended in 2015 with declaring insolvency of the company. Since then Ammono was run by a court-appointed liquidator (Wiesław Ostrowski’s Barrister Office). The first leasing period of Ammono lasted from August 2015 till end of September 2016 and the leasing party was Grupa Azoty Folie (GAF). After that Ammono was under the administration of Wiesław Ostrowski’s Barrister Office (October 2016 – end of June 2017). The Institute of High Pressure Physics Polish Academy of Sciences (IHPP PAS) has been the leaseholder of Ammono (a company with 30 employees) since the beginning of July 2017. During leasing by IHPP PAS many successful events took place in Ammono. Most of all, a record-breaking sale of gallium nitride (GaN) wafers was achieved. Both the value of sales as well as number of sold wafers have increased. Development of ammonothermal GaN crystallization technology was also observed. Crystals are grown with a twice higher rate without deteriorating their amazing structural quality. They are reaching a bigger lateral size. A significantly larger number of GaN seeds used for multiplication of crystals as well as preparing GaN substrates is currently present at Ammono. The seeds are of bigger size than in the past. A decrease in fixed as well as production costs was also noted. Since the Polish Industrial Development Agency granted a loan for the amount of PLN 14.72 million to the IHPP PAS, the Institute acquired Ammono S.A. in bankruptcy in 2019 and the company became part of the Institute. The commercial activity is kept as a pilot line.
In 2023, the Ammonothermal Synthesis Laboratory was launched.
More articles in this field:
Benjamin Damilano, Rémi Aristégui, Henryk Teisseyre, Stéphane Vézian, Vincent Guigoz, Aimeric Courville, Ileana Florea, Philippe Vennéguès, Michal Bockowski, Thierry Guillet, Maria Vladimirova "Molecular beam epitaxy of GaN/AlGaN quantum wells on bulk GaN substrate in the step-flow or step meandering regime: Influence on indirect exciton diffusion" Journal of Applied Physics (mar 2024)
Marek Zak, Pawel Kempisty, Boleslaw Lucznik, Karolina Grabianska, Robert Kucharski, Malgorzata Iwinska, Michal Bockowski "Modeling of convective transport in crystallization of gallium nitride by basic ammonothermal method" Journal of Crystal Growth (feb 2024)
Tomasz Sochacki, Robert Kucharski, Karolina Grabianska, Jan L Weyher, Magdalena A Zajac, Malgorzata Iwinska, Lutz Kirste, Michal Bockowski "Evolution of the Growth Mode and Its Consequences during Bulk Crystallization of GaN" Materials (apr 2023)
Andrzej Taube, Maciej Kaminski, Jaroslaw Tarenko, Oskar Sadowski, Marek Ekielski, Anna Szerling, Pawel Prystawko, Michal Bockowski, Izabella Grzegory "High Breakdown Voltage and High Current Injection Vertical GaN-on-GaN p-n Diodes With Extremely Low On-Resistance Fabricated on Ammonothermally Grown Bulk GaN Substrates" IEEE Trans. Electron Devices (nov 2022)
Lutz Kirste, Thu Nhi Tran Thi Caliste, Jan L. Weyher, Julita Smalc-Koziorowska, Magdalena A. Zajac, Robert Kucharski, Tomasz Sochacki, Karolina Grabianska, Malgorzata Iwinska, Carsten Detlefs, Andreas N. Danilewsky, Michal Bockowski, José Baruchel "Large-Scale Defect Clusters with Hexagonal Honeycomb-like Arrangement in Ammonothermal GaN Crystals" Materials (oct 2022)
Tomasz Sochacki, Robert Kucharski, Karolina Grabianska, Jan L. Weyher, Malgorzata Iwinska, Michal Bockowski, Lutz Kirste "Fundamental Studies on Crystallization and Reaching the Equilibrium Shape in Basic Ammonothermal Method: Growth on a Native Lenticular Seed" Materials (jun 2022)
Ya Fei Liu, Hong Yu Peng, Ze Yu Chen, Qian Yu Cheng, Shan Shan Hu, Balaji Raghothamachar, Michael Dudley, Ramon Collazo, Zlatko Sitar, James Tweedie, Michal Bockowski, Vincent Meyers, F. Shadi Shahedipour-Sandvik, Bing Jun Li, Jung Han "Synchrotron X-Ray Topography Characterization of Power Electronic GaN Materials" MSF (may 2022)
Karolina Grabianska, Robert Kucharski, Tomasz Sochacki, Jan L. Weyher, Malgorzata Iwinska, Izabella Grzegory, Michal Bockowski "On Stress-Induced Polarization Effect in Ammonothermally Grown GaN Crystals" Crystals (apr 2022)
M. Boćkowski, I. Grzegory "Recent Progress in Crystal Growth of Bulk GaN" Acta Phys. Pol. A (mar 2022)
M. A. Reshchikov, D. O. Demchenko, D. Ye, O. Andrieiev, M. Vorobiov, K. Grabianska, M. Zajac, P. Nita, M. Iwinska, M. Bockowski, B. McEwen, F. Shahedipour-Sandvik "The effect of annealing on photoluminescence from defects in ammonothermal GaN" Journal of Applied Physics (jan 2022)
Lutz Kirste, Karolina Grabianska, Robert Kucharski, Tomasz Sochacki, Boleslaw Lucznik, Michal Bockowski "Structural Analysis of Low Defect Ammonothermally Grown GaN Wafers by Borrmann Effect X-ray Topography" Materials (sep 2021)
M. A. Reshchikov, M. Vorobiov, K. Grabianska, M. Zajac, M. Iwinska, M. Bockowski "Defect-related photoluminescence from ammono GaN" Journal of Applied Physics (mar 2021)
Yafei Liu, Balaji Raghothamachar, Hongyu Peng, Tuerxun Ailihumaer, Michael Dudley, Ramon Collazo, James Tweedie, Zlatko Sitar, F. Shadi Shahedipour-Sandvik, Kenneth A. Jones, Andrew Armstrong, Andrew A. Allerman, Karolina Grabianska, Robert Kucharski, Michal Bockowski "Synchrotron X-ray topography characterization of high quality ammonothermal-grown gallium nitride substrates" Journal of Crystal Growth (dec 2020)
K. Grabianska, R. Kucharski, A. Puchalski, T. Sochacki, M. Bockowski "Recent progress in basic ammonothermal GaN crystal growth" Journal of Crystal Growth (oct 2020)
R. Kucharski, T. Sochacki, B. Lucznik, M. Bockowski "Growth of bulk GaN crystals" Journal of Applied Physics (aug 2020)
Ferdinand Scholz, Michal Bockowski, Ewa Grzanka "GaN-Based Materials" (aug 2020)
Karolina Grabianska, Piotr Jaroszynski, Aneta Sidor, Michal Bockowski, Malgorzata Iwinska "GaN Single Crystalline Substrates by Ammonothermal and HVPE Methods for Electronic Devices" Electronics (aug 2020)
P. Kruszewski, P. Prystawko, M. Grabowski, T. Sochacki, A. Sidor, M. Bockowski, J. Jasinski, L. Lukasiak, R. Kisiel, M. Leszczynski "Electrical properties of vertical GaN Schottky diodes on Ammono-GaN substrate" Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing (jun 2019)
M. Zajac, R. Kucharski, K. Grabianska, A. Gwardys-Bak, A. Puchalski, D. Wasik, E. Litwin-Staszewska, R. Piotrzkowski, J. Z Domagala, M. Bockowski "Basic ammonothermal growth of Gallium Nitride State of the art, challenges, perspectives" Progress in Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials (sep 2018)