Soraa, dedicated in developing GaN solid-state lighting technology, has been selected by Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to lead a project on bulk GaN substrates development. It’s the only ARPA-E funded LED substrate project.

Soraa claims to be the only LED manufacturer in the world shipping products based on superior GaN on GaN LEDs. GaN on GaN LEDs are of particular interest because they have demonstrated much higher performance than traditional lighting technologies and thus offer the potential for major energy savings.

Currently, due in part to the absence of inexpensive native GaN substrates,adoption of GaN on GaN technology for large-scale applications has been inhibited by high costs.

Therefore, creating a made-in-U.S.A. solution to the challenges of bulk GaN production will benefit the company, the LED industry, and the American consumer with more energy efficient, less expensive and more readily available components.

Soraa says manufacturers using other substrates have to use three, four and even more to get the same brightness. Multiple sources of light within a lamp mean fuzzy shadows and not the crisp light required of an MR-16 for best use in commercial, museum or high-end consumer applications. The MR-16 lamps or bulbs are Soraa's first commercially available product.

ARPA-E, a new agency within the U.S. Department of Energy that invests exclusively in transformational energy technologies, began funding Soraa as a consortium member for this project in 2011. ARPA-E's recent decision to make Soraa the lead organisation on the project means that the firm will become the prime contractor working with ARPA-E to commercialise GaN substrate technology.

According a US Department of Energy study , applications for GaN substrates have the potential to reduce U.S. energy consumption by over 30%. Those same applications represent potential markets, including laser diodes and power electronics, of over $50 billion annually.