Planar deep-ultraviolet (DUV) light emitting diodes (LEDs) suffer from extremely low external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) due to poor light extraction efficiencies (LEE) which are often less than 1%, hindering their widespread use. In AlGaN DUV LEDs with high Al-content, the positioning of the valence subbands leads to dominant transverse magnetic (TM)-polarized emission which is difficult to extract from planar devices. To improve the LEE of DUV LEDs, techniques such as surface roughening and nanowire formation have been used. Nanowires are especially promising for DUV LEDs because they allow for very efficient extraction of TM-polarized light through their sidewalls. In this work, we demonstrate a novel “inverse taper” profile in AlGaN nanowires, in which the base of the nanowire can be narrowed to have a smaller diameter than the top through a KOH-based wet etch process. Hydroxyl-based chemistries are known to have a lower etch rate against the c-plane of wurtzite AlGaN alloys. Here, we report on observations of 0.8% KOH at 80℃ exhibiting a unique selectivity to a different wurtzite crystal plane, believed to be the (202̅ 1) plane, allowing for formation of an inverse taper structure. Finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations at 280 nm reveal that AlGaN nanowire LEDs with high sidewall inverse taper angles can have greater than 75% and 90% LEE for TE and TM-polarized light respectively, ~2.5x higher than the LEE of vertical sidewall nanowires. This novel phenomenon may allow for significant improvements in the LEE of DUV nanowire LEDs.
Light extraction efficiency (ηextraction) remains as a big challenge for high-efficiency deep-ultraviolet (UV) lightemitting diodes (LEDs) due to the large refractive index contrast at the AlN(sapphire)/air interface. Various surface patterning approaches such as microdome design and patterned sapphire substrates have been proposed to address the low ηextraction issue. Nevertheless, these previously proposed methods all involved additional complicated fabrication steps and the polarization-dependent analysis for these devices has not been investigated experimentally. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of using 700-nm SiO2 microsphere array on 280 nm flip-chip UV LEDs to improve the ηextraction. Angle- and polarization-dependent electroluminescence measurements have been performed to compare the 280 nm LEDs with and without the SiO2 microsphere array. The UV LED with microsphere array showed enhancement for transverse-electric (TE)-polarized light intensities at small angles while decreased intensities at large angles with respect to c-axis, as compared to the device without SiO2 microspheres For instance, up to 7.4% enhancement is observed at θ = 0°. However, for transverse-magnetic (TM)-polarized light, the intensities largely remain the same at small angles while decrease at large angles. Cross-sectional near-field electric field distribution from three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulation has confirmed that the use of SiO2 microspheres array resulted in scattering of photons at the sapphire/SiO2 microspheres interface, which eventually leads to enhanced TE-photons extraction at small-angles. From simulation, the light radiation patterns from the UV LED with SiO2 spheres are reshaped to a small-angle-favored pattern without reducing the total output power, showing great consistency with the measurement results.
III-nitride based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have great potential in various applications due to their higher efficiency and longer lifetime. However, conventional planar structure InGaN LED suffers from total internal reflection due to large refractive index contrast between GaN (nGaN = 2.5) and air (nair = 1), which results in low light extraction efficiency (ηextraction). Accordingly, various approaches have been proposed previously to enhance the ηextraction. Nevertheless, most of the proposed methods involve elaborated fabrication processes. Therefore, in this work, we proposed the integration of three-dimensional (3D) printing with LED fabrication as a straightforward and highlyreproducible method to improve the ηextraction. Specifically, 500-μm diameter dome-shaped lens of optically transparent acrylate-based photopolymer is 3D-printed on planar structure 500 × 500 μm2 blue-emitting LEDs. Light output power measurement shows that up to 9% enhancement at injection current 4 mA can be obtained from the LEDs with 3D printed lens on top as compared to LEDs without the lens. Angle-dependent electroluminescence measurement also exhibits significant light output enhancement between angles 0 and 30° due to the larger photon escape cone introduced by the higher refractive index of the 3D printed lens (nlens = 1.5) than the air medium as well as the enhanced light scattering effect attributed to the curvature surface of the 3D printed lens. Our simulation results based on 3D finitedifference time-domain method also show that up to 1.61-times enhancement in ηextraction can be achieved by the use of 3D-printed lens of various dimensions as compared to conventional structure without the lens.
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