Historically, at the moment of UNIPRESS (High Pressure Research Center of the Polish Academy
of Sciences) funding, i.e., in 1972, Semiconductor Laboratory constituted the
research base of the Center. It was involved in the studies of narrow gap semiconductors, consisting mainly of the
electronic band structure and point defect related phenomena. It was the field
successfully developed by the Polish Semiconductor School led by Leonard
Sosnowski. The typical compound semiconductors studied from middle of 60-ties
to the beginning of 80-ties were InSb and HgTe. Later on the main interest of
the Semiconductor Laboratory moved to GaAs, AlGaAs and low dimensional systems based on arsenides. The activity
concentrated on electronic band structure, transport effects and on donor
dopants exhibiting strong coupling to the crystal lattice (so called DX
Centers). Since 1990-92 the main subjected of activity have switched to wide
bandgap binaries of GaN, InN, AlN and their alloys. Firstly, their
basic properties including electronic band structure, phonons, and point
defects were studied experimentally and theoretically. Then, epitaxial growth
and light emitting devices in blue range have additionally become the domains
of the Laboratory. Main future activity will be related to materials and
devices emitting light in ultraviolet range of the spectrum.
Basing on a long tradition of fundamental semiconductor research by means of high pressure
techniques, one of the nowadays activity of the Laboratory is devoted to
pressure tuning of semiconductor laser diodes.