Cause to celebrate, cause to grumble

摘要

In high tech terms, two and a half decades or slightly under the 30 years of a human generation, is an immense time span. It encompasses several generations of materials, their adaptation and continual device development. Amazing phrases like "hated milling graphite boats for us," or "in 1968 Sheffield installed photolithography and got its epi GaAs from Monsanto; there was no IQE growing it then," have all the instant, graphic charm of a fly embedded in amber and were calmly delivered by Emeritus Professor Peter Robson. 1979 saw the first LP 1&2 reactors (costing some ￡4,382 and home built, compared to the all singing and dancing ￡1.12m MOVPE of 2004). In 1981 came the first commercial MOVPE reactor from Cambridge Instruments for GaAs and GaAlAs.