From a story in The Independent written by Maddie Lee:

Three Central Coast companies are the recipients of the newest series of United States Department of Energy grants awarded to small businesses. Awarded in late June at $1 million each, the grants for SixPoint Materials, Inc., MicroBio Engineering Inc., and Freedom Photonics, LLC encourage further clean energy research and technology development.

Buellton-based company SixPoint Materials has been making inroads in energy efficiency technology since its founding in 2006. Tadao Hashimoto, the company’s CEO and CTO and a PhD graduate of UCSB’s material sciences department, leads his modest team of 10 in the production of gallium nitride (GaN) wafers — a small but crucial technology that gives life to power transistors, laser diodes, light emitting diodes, and other GaN-based devices. The switch from the traditional silicon-based material to gallium nitride is “crucial for the next step in energy efficiency,” according to Hashimoto, as gallium nitride is “much more efficient and compact.” The latest DOE grant will fund research on improvements in the cutting and polishing process of each individual wafer, which Hashimoto equated to the meticulous nature of diamond production.

Please read the entire story, "Three Companies Receive Clean Energy Awards," at The Independent.