6.02 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

6.
02 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

Y-K Su, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, China
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
6.02.1
6.02.1.1
6.02.1.2
6.02.2
6.02.2.1
6.02.2.2
6.02.3
6.02.3.1
6.02.3.2
6.02.3.3
6.02.4
6.02.4.1
6.02.4.1.1
6.02.4.1.2
6.02.4.2
6.02.4.3
6.02.4.3.1
6.02.4.3.2
6.02.4.3.3
6.02.4.4
6.02.4.4.1
6.02.4.4.2
6.02.4.4.3
6.02.4.4.4
6.02.5
6.02.5.1
6.02.5.2
6.02.5.3
6.02.6
6.02.6.1
6.02.6.1.1
6.02.6.1.2
6.02.6.1.3
6.02.6.2
6.02.6.2.1
6.02.6.2.2
6.02.6.2.3
6.02.6.2.4
6.02.7
6.02.7.1
6.02.7.1.1
6.02.7.1.2
6.02.7.1.3
6.02.7.2
6.02.7.2.1
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Introduction
Basic Theory
History and Applications
Quality of Epitaxial Layer
Nucleation and Buffer Layer
Epitaxial Lateral Growth
Internal Quantum Efficiency
Charge Asymmetric Resonant Tunneling
Doped MQW
Quantum-Dot
Light Extraction Enhancement
Patterned Substrate
Dry etching
Wet etching
Distributed Bragg Reflector
Surface and Periphery Treatment
Epitaxial parameters in MOCVD
Etching
Exterior shaping
Wafer Bonding
Direct bonding
Metal bonding
Glue bonding
Flip Chip
Metal Contact
Ohmic Contact
SPS Contact Layer
Tunneling Contact Layer
ESD Protection Issue
Parallel Protection Device
GaN LEDs with Si Zener diodes
Improved ESD protection of GaN LEDs with internal ESD protection diodes
GaN power LED with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor ESD protection
circuits
Epitaxial Structure
GaN-based LEDs with multiple GaN/SiN nucleation layers
Nitride-based LEDs with n-GaN current spreading layers
Nitride-based dual-stage MQW LEDs
Growth methods of the p-GaN in GaN-based LEDs
Nitride-Based WLEDs
Colorimetry
Human eye sensitivity
Color-matching functions and chromaticity diagram
The mixing of lights
White Light Emission Techniques for LEDs
Phosphor-converted WLEDs
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Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

6.02.7.2.2
6.02.7.2.3
6.02.7.2.4
6.02.8
6.02.8.1
6.02.8.1.1
6.02.8.1.2
6.02.8.2
6.02.8.2.1
6.02.8.2.2
6.02.8.3
6.02.8.3.1
6.02.8.3.2
6.02.8.3.3
6.02.8.4
6.02.8.4.1
6.02.8.5
6.02.8.5.1
6.02.8.5.2
6.02.8.5.3
6.02.8.5.4
References
MQWs for multiple color emissions

Co-doping in a monolithic chip
Multi-chip integration
Superluminescent LEDs
Heat Dissipation
Junction temperature
Thermal conductivity
Electroplating Substrate
Electroplated copper substrate LEDs
Electroplated nickel Substrate LEDs
Die Bond Intermedium
Epoxy
Silver paste
Solder
Lead Frame
Ceramic
Encapsulation
Epoxy
Silicone
Phosphor distribution
Nanoparticles
6.02.1 Introduction
Light-emitting semiconductor devices basically serve
as linkages between displays and the human eyes.
They are widely applied in electric-instrument displays, traffic signals, backlighting, car lights, traffic
lights, and solid-state lighting. Particularly, solidstate lighting (SSL) through light-emitting diodes
(LEDs) is the use of solid-state semiconductor LEDs
to produce white light for illumination. These LEDs
will gradually replace conventional light sources: the
incandescent tungsten-filament-heated lamps and
fluorescent lamps. The SSL-LEDs have the following
advantages to act as the light sources:
reductions in electrical energy consumption,

long life for use,
compactness in size,
reductions in carbon-related pollution,
control for different environmental applications,
and
fast response.
The conversion efficiency in 2008 had reached

150 lm W1 in laboratories and 100 lm W1 for commercial applications. Therefore, SSL-LEDs are
promised to become the most important light sources
by 2010.
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6.02.1.1
Basic Theory
The LED converts electric current into light.

Basically, LEDs are pn junctions in forward bias.
When the devices are forward-biased, electrons will
cross the junction from the n-type material and
recombine with holes in the p-type materials as
shown in Figures 1(a) and 1(b).
If the semiconductor is a direct-band-gap material,
such as GaAs, InP, or GaN, the electrons and holes can
recombine directly, with no concern about the momentum conservation, and light (or photons) can be emitted.
Conversely, if the semiconductor is an indirect bandgap material, such as silicon (Si) or germanium (Ge),
the conservation of both energy and momentum should
be considered. Recombination occurs via recombination centers in the forbidden band; and energy is
released in the form of heat. There is a very low
probability and efficiency of radiation when recombination takes place in the indirect band-gap materials.
Silicon carbide (SiC), another indirect semiconductor,
exists in allotropes with one form having a band gap of
3 eV. The radiation efficiency is also quite low in this
column IV compound semiconductor. Hence, this
material is seldom used as a light source.
Figure 2 shows the visible wavelength spectra
of light emitting for various IIIV compound
Resistor
(a)
(b)
Injected electrons
Ec
P
EFn
+
V Bias
LED
Light
EFp
Ev
N
Injected holes
Figure 1 (a) Basic operation of a light-emitting diode (LED). (b) Electronhole recombination in forward-biased pn junction
resulting in radiation.
300
400
500
600
700
UV
800
nm
IR
GaAsp
Dicing saw
Epitaxy
AlGaAs
AlGalnP
Ingot
Substrate
Brightness
color
Wafer
AlInGan
Violet
Blue
Green Yellow Orange
Red
Figure 2 Visible light spectra and the corresponding

materials.
semiconductors. The emitting wavelength of LEDs is

primarily determined by the band gap of semiconductors. The band-gap energy, Eg, the difference
between the top of the valence band and the bottom
of the conduction band, can be converted into the
wavelength of the radiation:
hc
Eg

1:24
mm
Eg in eV
where h is the Planck constant in J s, c is the velocity

of light in m s1, Eg is the band-gap energy in eV, and
is the wavelength in meter. The most common
alloy compositions and materials used in LEDs are
also shown in Figure 2. One is AlGaInP-based semiconductor for red, yellow, and orange emission. The
other is AlGaInN-based materials for blue, green,
ultraviolet (UV), and white emission. Gallium
arsenide substrates are generally used for the former
devices. Sapphire and SiC are used for the latter
diodes. It is difficult to obtain GaN substrates by
using conventional crystal growth technology.
Recently, GaN substrates are applied as the substrate
by using hydride vapor-phase epitaxy (HVPE) technology. AlGaInP materials system has been
demonstrated as the most efficient red luminescence.
In addition, red LEDs could be useful in a white light
system as one of several colors mixed together to
Process
Package
Brightness
heat design
Optics
lead frame
resin
Housing
circuit
heat sink
Die/chip
LED
Module
Figure 3 Basic manufacturing process of light-emitting

diodes (LEDs).
create white light. Green, blue, and red LEDs could

be applied in color-mixing approach by mixing as two
or three colors to form white light. Actually, white light
can be obtained by pumping blue InGaN/GaN LEDs
to yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) phosphors doped
with cerium to form two-band emission and white light.
Recently, using a UV-LED allowed nearly 100% of
efficiency in down-conversion, as all the energy will be
absorbed and converted by the phosphor. Moreover, a
three-phosphor (redgreenblue (RGB)) approach will
implement color tunability and rendering index. Two
materials systems (AlGaInP and AlGaInN) for generating the various colors of LEDs can be fabricated and
obtained by means of metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy (MOVPE) or molecular beam epitaxy (MBE)
techniques. The former system is widely applied in
the epitaxial system commercially. Figure 3 shows
the basic manufacturing process of LEDs. Two to six
inches of GaAs, sapphire, or SiC substrates can be
obtained by dicing saw from GaAs, sapphire, or SiC
ingots. After suitable polishing, grinding, and cleaning,
different structures of epilayers were epitaxially grown
onto the substrate. The wafers were then processed by
fabrication procedures by using electron cyclotron

resonance (ECR) etching or inductively coupled
plasma (ICP) etching and lithography techniques. Au/
Zn or Ni/Au and Au/Ge or Ti/Al/Au contact metals
were then deposited on top of p-type and n-type GaNbased wafers or GaAs-based wafers for ohmic contact.
The wafers were then cut into dies/chips by means of
diamond saw or laser cutting. Dies/chips were bonded
in the lead frame by suitable package techniques.
6.02.1.2
History and Applications
Due to their superior intrinsic properties such as a

wide range of direct band gap, strong bond between
group III atoms and nitrogen, high saturation velocity, and high thermal conductivity, nitride-based
AlGaInN materials are widely applied in optoelectronic and electronic (microwave) devices. For the
applications of optoelectronic devices, GaN-based
semiconductors have been made to LEDs, laser
diodes (LDs), and photodetectors (PDs) in the visible
and UV regions. LDs with 405-nm wavelength are
potentially and practically applied in blue-ray disk
for DVD products (DVD, digital versatile disk). For
the applications of electronic devices, GaN-based
semiconductors are good candidates for high-voltage,
high-power, and high-temperature devices, such as
heterojunction field-effect transistors (HEFTs) and
heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) due to
their large band gap, high thermal conductivity, and
high saturation velocity.
Concerning the applications for high-brightness
LEDs, GaN-based LEDs are used for special applications (e.g., traffic lights, backlights, and automotive
backlight), outdoor or stage projects, customized general and special lighting (design-in, e.g., surface/wall
washing), and, finally, general lighting mass market
(new LED products, ambience, retrofit lamps, etc.).
For general lighting market, LEDs will be applied in
channel letter/contour, architecture lighting, retail
display, residential, entertainment, machine vision,
consumer portable, safety/security, outdoor area,
and off-grid lighting.
In 2007, the total revenue of global high-brightness
LED market was about US$4.6 billion; the market
shares for mobile appliances, signs and displays, automotive, illumination, signals, and others were 44%,
17%, 15%, 7%, 1%, and 16%, respectively (Hatcher,
2008). The revenue forecast for global high-brightness
LED market in 2012 is predicted to be about US$11.4
billion. The corresponding market shares for signs and
displays, mobile appliances, automotive, illumination,
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and others will be 44%, 20%, 12%, 12%, and 12%,

respectively. In addition, cold cathode fluorescent
lamp (CCFL) backlight for liquid crystal display
(LCD) will be completely replaced by LEDs within
5 years.
From 1965 to 1985, it was quite difficult to epitaxially grow high-quality single-crystalline layers of
nitride-based materials onto the suitable substrates,
especially the growth of low-resistivity p-type GaN
materials was extremely difficult. These problems
and bottlenecks prevented the normal developments
of GaN-based devices for many years. In 1986,
Akasakis research group (Akasaki, 1986, 1998, 2007;
Koide et al., 1988) dramatically improved the crystalline quality of GaN epilayers by using a lowtemperature (LT) deposited AlN buffer layer
technology onto sapphire substrates in MOVPE. At
that time, the residual electron concentration of the
GaN grown with LT-AlN buffer layer could be
reduced to as low as 1017 cm3, which is more than
two orders of magnitude lower than that of the GaN
without using the LT-AlN buffer layer. Another
breakthrough for GaN-based devices was the success
of improving high-quality p-type conduction in GaN
and realization of GaN pn junction blue LEDs. In
1989, Akasakis research group (Amano et al., 1988,
1990) also successfully developed Mg-dopant technology in GaN by using CP2Mg as an Mg-dopant. This
Mg-doped GaN samples were irradiated with electron
beams (e-beams). In this case, a great improvement in
blue luminescence of Mg-doped GaN samples as well
as high concentration of p-type GaN can be obtained,
enabling the development of many devices. In other
words, in order to realize p-type nitrides, suitable
annealing and thermal energy should be applied to
the Mg-doped GaN samples (Amano et al., 1989).
In 1992, p-type GaN was also produced by thermal annealing of Mg-doped GaN grown with the LT
GaN buffer layer by Nakamuras research group
(Nakamura et al., 1992a). For obtaining high-quality
p-type epilayers, it must activate Mg acceptors by
releasing hydrogen by means of electron annealing,
thermal annealing, and UV or electromagnetic wave
irradiation. LT buffer layer GaN growth and high
quality of p-type conduction were two major and
crucial steps for the development of GaN-based epilayers and devices. Another essential step to reduce
the dislocation density as low as 107cm2 was by
using epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG) technique
(Usui, 1997). In this case, high quality and low dislocation density of GaN-based devices can be
achieved. The stunning technological breakthroughs
by Nakamura (1991a, 1991b, 1993; Yam and Hassan,

2005) in producing GaN-based blue and green LEDs
in the early 1990s have a profound impact on the
LED technology.
This chapter describes nitride-based LEDs and
superluminescent LEDs (SLEDs). Overall, there are
eight sections. Section 6.02.2 discusses the quality of
epitaxial layer. In this section, nucleation, buffer
layer, and ELOG, which are performed in order to
obtain high-quality GaN-based epilayers, are
described. Section 6.02.3 discusses internal quantum
efficiency about charge asymmetric resonant tunneling (CART), doped multiple quantum-well (MQW),
and quantum-dot (QW) structures. Section 6.02.4
reports on the use of patterned substrate, distributed
Bragg reflector (DBR), surface and periphery treatment, wafer bonding, and flip-chip bonding.
Section 6.02.5 reports on metal contact, including
ohmic contact, short-period superlattice (SPS) contact layer, and tunneling contact layer. Electrostatic
discharge (ESD) protection issue is explained in
Section 6.02.6, including different technologies such
as epitaxial structure improvement and parallel protection device technique.
Nitride-based white LEDs (WLEDs) are quite
important and are discussed in Section 6.02.7. In
this section, different techniques, for example, phosphors converted WLEDs, MQWs for multiple color
emissions, and co-doping in the single-chip and
multi-chip integration, are introduced. Finally, in
Section 6.02.8, SLEDs are discussed in detail. In this
section, we report on the techniques of heat dissipation, electroplating substrate, die bonding, lead
frame, and several materials and technologies for
encapsulating to obtain SLEDs.
6.02.2 Quality of Epitaxial Layer

In recent years, GaN-based optical devices, such as
LEDs and LDs, have been successfully developed by
using sapphire substrates. Because of the large mismatches in lattice constants and thermal expansion
coefficients between epilayers and substrates, a very
large number of defects were formed during the
growth. Amano et al. (1986) and Manabe et al. (1992)
used AlN buffer layers to achieve the high-quality
GaN thin films. Later, the high Hall mobility of
GaN film was reported by using the GaN buffer layers
(Nakamura, 1991; Moustakas, 1995). Iwaya et al. (1998)
found that the etch pit density (EPT) of GaN was
drastically reduced by insertion of an LT buffer layer.
In addition, the GaN quality could be improved with

more pair numbers as well as thicker pair of buffer
layers (Yang et al., 1999). Yang et al. observed that the
LED with multiple buffer layers has a low turn-on
voltage and higher light output power due to the
reduction of dislocations near the pn junction (Yang
et al., 2000, 2001). On the other hand, the LED without
a buffer layer had a high series resistance at the junction because of the heating effect.
Another way to reduce the dislocation density is
to use the lateral epitaxial growth technique. Kato
et al. (1994) have demonstrated the selective growth
of GaN on GaN/sapphire substrates with SiO2
masks. More recently, pendeo-epitaxy technique
has been developed. The stress distribution of GaN
grown with the pendeo-epitaxy technique was also
investigated (Zheleva et al., 1999). Ishibashi et al.
(2000) reported the high-quality GaN film by applying the air-bridged lateral epitaxial growth. The
density of vertical and horizontal dislocations could
be about 1 106 cm2. Besides, Sumiya et al. (2002)
showed that the defect density of InGaN overlayer
decreased from 5 109 cm2 to 2 107 cm2 after
using the buried Ga dot layers. It should be noted
that the size of Ga dots was controlled by the flow
rate and deposition time of trimethylgallium
(TMGa). These results suggest that one can suppress
the defect density of GaN-based materials, which
possibly leads to the high-performance device, by
multiple buffer layers and lateral epitaxial growth.
Section 6.02.2.1 deals with single and multiple
buffer layers grown on sapphire substrates for
decreasing the lattice-mismatch-induced threading
dislocations (TDs; Liu et al., 2004; Wei et al., 2005).
Here, the electrical and optical characteristics of
LEDs with and without the multiple buffer layers
are also described. In Section 6.02.2.2, the two-step
ELOG technique that is used to achieve low defect
density of GaN layer is discussed (Ko et al., 2003).
The surface morphologies of one-step ELOG and
two-step ELOG samples are investigated.
6.02.2.1
Nucleation and Buffer Layer
In order to reduce the dislocation density, it has been

shown that the low defect density could be achieved
by using SiN or GaN/SiN double buffer layers. The
porous SiN layer would enhance the lateral growth
of epilayer. As a result, the crystal quality of GaN
epitaxial layers could be improved. In this section, we
demonstrate the growth of nitride-based LEDs on
SiN buffer layer, GaN/SiN double buffer layer, and
10-pair GaN/SiN buffer layers. For comparison, the

conventional nitride-based LED grown on single LT
GaN buffer layer was also fabricated.
All nitride-based LED samples were grown
on C-plane sapphire substrates by metal-organic
chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). TMGa, trimethylindium (TMIn), trimethylaluminum (TMAl),
and ammonia (NH3) were used as Ga, In, Al, and N
sources, respectively. Disilane and NH3 were used
for the growth of the SiN nucleation layers. The
sapphire substrates were first annealed at 1100 C
under H2 ambient to remove surface contaminants.
Then, various nucleation layers, including single LT
GaN nucleation layer, GaN/SiN double buffer
layers, and GaN/SiN multiple nucleation layers,
were deposited on the sapphire substrates, followed
by the growth of InGaN/GaN MQW LED structures on top of LT GaN and GaN/SiN nucleation
layers. These samples were partially etched until the
n-type GaN layers were exposed. Both Ni/Au and
Ti/Al/Ti/Au metal layers were evaporated onto ptype GaN and n-type GaN layers to serve as p-type
and n-type contact pads, respectively. For the sample
evaluation, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and
transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used
to characterize surface morphologies and cross sections of the as-grown samples, respectively. In
addition, currentvoltage (IV) characteristics of the
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fabricated devices were measured at room temperature by an HP4156 semiconductor parameter

analyzer. The reliability measurement for these
LEDs was also performed.
Figures 4(a) and 4(b) show TEM images of LED
with conventional GaN single buffer layer and LED
with GaN/SiN double buffer layers, respectively. It can
be found that the TD density of LED with GaN/SiN
double buffer layers is much smaller than that of LED
with single buffer layer. Therefore, the GaN/SiN double buffer layers could indeed reduce the dislocation
density of LED. Room-temperature IV characteristics
of the two LEDs with different buffers are also measured. The forward IV characteristics of these two
LEDs are almost identical. Both LEDs exhibit a
20-mA operation voltage at around 3.2 V. On the
other hand, reverse IV characteristics of these two
LEDs are different. At a reverse current of 10 mA, the
reverse voltages were 16 V and 20 V for LED with GaN
single buffer layer and LED with GaN/SiN double
buffer layers, respectively. Such a reduction of reverse
current could be attributed to the reduced TD density
provided by GaN/SiN double buffer layers.
The reliability measurement of relative luminous
intensity was performed for these two LEDs. All
LEDs were driven by a 50-mA injection current
and the temperature was controlled at 80 C. The
rapid decay in luminous intensity of the conventional
p-GaN
p-GaN
(b)
(a)
MQW
n-GaN
MQW
n-GaN
GaN buffer
Al3O3
1.0 m
GaN/SiN buffer
Al2O3
1.0 m
Figure 4 Transmission electron microscope (TEM) images of (a) light-emitting diode (LED) with conventional GaN single
buffer layer and (b) LED with GaN/SiN double buffer layers (Liu et al., 2004).
nitride-based LED is found due to its higher dislocation density. Under high current injection, therefore,
the conventional nitride-based LED will have higher
leakage current. In contrast, the lifetime of nitridebased LED with GaN/SiN double buffer layers is
significantly improved.
Figures 5(a) and 5(b) show TEM images of the blue
LED with a single LT GaN nucleation layer and the
blue LED with 10-pair GaN/SiN nucleation layers,
respectively. As expected, a large number of defects
are generated in the conventional LED with a single
LT GaN nucleation layer. In contrast, the defect density is significantly reduced by using 10-pair GaN/SiN
nucleation layers. These results indicate that the smaller number of TD density observed from the blue LED
with multiple GaN/SiN nucleation layers could be
attributed to the enhanced lateral growth.
Figures 6(a) and 6(b) show SEM images of the
conventional LED with single LT GaN nucleation
layer and the LED with 10-pair GaN/SiN nucleation
layers, respectively. Figure 6(a) shows a large number
of hexagonal features. The surface of the conventional
LED was relatively rough, possibly related to TDs. In
contrast, the defect density of sample with 10-pair
GaN/SiN nucleation layers was much less than that
of the conventional sample (Figure 7).
The IV measurement of conventional LED and
sample with 10-pair GaN/SiN nucleation layers was
performed. The reverse leakage current observed
from the LED with a single LT GaN nucleation
layer was much higher than that of the LED with
10-pair GaN/SiN nucleation layers. The reverse
leakage currents of the conventional LED and
sample with 10-pair GaN/SiN nucleation layers
(a)
were 1.5 104 and 2.5 106 A, respectively, at

the applied reverse bias of 20 V. In other words, the
reverse leakage current could be reduced by two
orders of magnitude after applying the 10-pair
GaN/SiN nucleation layers. Therefore, larger
reverse leakage current of the conventional LED
could be attributed to its higher defect density.
The light intensitycurrent (LI) characteristics of
the LEDs emitted in near-UV (n-UV) and blue
regimes were also measured. It was found that the
electroluminescence (EL) intensities observed from
the blue LEDs with and without the multiple GaN/
SiN nucleation layers were almost identical. Because
of the large number of deep localized energy states in
blue LEDs, which originate from large alloy composition fluctuations and responsible for the LED
efficiency, the EL intensity of the blue LEDs is not
influenced by the defect density. On the other hand,
n-UV LEDs have smaller number of deep localized
energy states. As a result, the EL intensity of n-UV
LED with 10-pair GaN/SiN nucleation layers was
significantly improved as compared to that of the
conventional n-UV LED.
The life test of these two LEDs was performed.
Both LEDs were driven with the current injection of
50 mA and the temperature was controlled at 80 C.
For LED with 10-pair GaN/SiN nucleation layers, it
was found that EL intensity decreased by 8% after
73 h. On the other hand, the higher degradation of EL
intensity (18%) for LED with single LT GaN nucleation layer was observed. Therefore, multiple
GaN/SiN nucleation layers could reduce defect density and improve the crystal quality of the GaN-based
LEDs. In addition, it was shown that multiple
(b)
1.0 m
1.0 m
Figure 5 Transmission electron microscope (TEM) images of (a) conventional light-emitting diode (LED) with single lowtemperature (LT) GaN nucleation layer and (b) LED with 10-pair GaN/SiN nucleation layers (Wei et al., 2005).
(a)
35
(b)
I47S04-02-r41
SE
11-Nov-03
I47SE04-040
epitec WD 7.3 mm 15.0 kV 9.0 k
5 m
SE
07-Nov-03
epitec WD 5.6 mm15.0 kV 9.0 k
5 m
Figure 6 Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of (a) conventional (LED) with single (LT) GaN nucleation layer and
(b) LED with 10-pair GaN/SiN nucleation layers (Wei et al., 2005).
XRD intensity (a.u.)
2nd-ELOG
2D-GaN
1st-ELOG
3D-GaN
SiO2
SiO2
GaN
GaN buffer layer
GaN buffer
Sapphire
GaN/SiN (x10) buffer

600
400 200
0
200
400
Relative diffraction angle (arcsec)
600
Figure 7 X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra of the two

samples with different buffer layers (Wei et al., 2005).
GaN/SiN nucleation layers could effectively reduce

reverse leakage current and enhance the reliability of
nitride-based LEDs.
6.02.2.2
Epitaxial Lateral Growth
Because of the large differences in lattice constant and

thermal expansion coefficient between GaN and sapphire substrate, the dislocation density in the as-grown
GaN epilayers was as high as 1091010 cm2. In order
to solve this problem, ELOG technique was used to
effectively reduce the density of TDs in GaN. A
stripe-type SiO2 or SiNx mask is deposited on top of
GaN templates for the ELOG fabrication. Then the
lateral overgrowth can be achieved through the window regions of the mask. Lateral epitaxial patterned
sapphire (LEPS) provides the alternative way to
reduce GaN TDs. For LEPS, sapphire substrates are
Figure 8 Schematic diagram of two-step epitaxial lateral

overgrowth (ELOG) growth for GaN (Ko et al., 2003).
first patterned by lithography and etching, followed by

the growth of nitride-based epitaxial layers on top of
the patterned sapphire substrates (PSSs). It should be
noted that only one MOCVD growth is needed for
LEPS technique. In this section, the ELOG and the
overgrowth from 3D islands are combined to realize a
two-step ELOG growth of GaN. The growth of GaN
epitaxial layers on PSS is also reported.
GaN templates were grown by MOCVD prior to
the two-step ELOG growth. The 2-mm-thick
undoped GaN templates were first grown on sapphire substrates. A 100-nm-thick SiO2 layer was then
deposited onto the GaN templates by plasmaenhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD).
The window and stripe regions with different widths
were formed by standard lithography and etching.
Then the patterned GaN templates were loaded
into MOCVD system again for the two-step ELOG
growth. Figure 8 shows the schematic diagram of the
two-step ELOG growth. In the first step of ELOG
growth, flow rates of TMGa and NH3 were controlled

at 22.1 mmol min1 and 4 slm, respectively, in order to
achieve 3D GaN growth through the window regions
of the patterned sample surface. The growth temperature was then raised from 520 to 1120 C for the
second step ELOG growth. The flow rates of TMGa
and NH3 were controlled at 88.4 mmol min1 and
4 slm, respectively. Hydrogen was used as the carrier
gas and the total pressure was 200 torr. For comparison, a sample without any ELOG process was also
prepared. These samples were then characterized by
SEM. We also chemically etched the samples in 85%
of phosphoric acid (H3PO4) at 200 C for 10 min to
observe the EPD which was then measured by optical
microscopy (OM).
Figures 9(a) and 9(b) show cross-sectional and
plan-view SEM micrographs, respectively, of the
one-step ELOG sample. The morphology of this
sample was poor and there were large pits on top of
the surface. In addition, the lateral growth rate of this
one-step ELOG sample was very slow. These drawbacks could be overcome by using the two-step
ELOG technique. Figures 10(a)10(c) show the
two-step ELOG samples with a 4-, 8-, and 16-min
first-step LT growth time, respectively. The SEM
cross sections of these two-step ELOG GaN samples
were trapezoid. Figure 11 shows the plan-view SEM
micrograph of the two-step ELOG sample with an
8-min first-step LT growth time. We can observe
that the surface morphology of the two-step ELOG
sample was much better than that of the one-step
ELOG sample. Figure 12 shows the surface OM
micrographs of etched sample and the etched control
sample (i.e., without any ELOG). The EPD was
(a)
around 1.6 107 cm2 for the etched sample and

1.2 109 cm2 for the etched control sample, respectively. It indicates that the two-step ELOG technique
can, indeed, significantly suppress the formation of
dislocations for GaN epitaxial layers.
6.02.3 Internal Quantum Efficiency

In order to achieve high internal quantum efficiency,
MQWs are generally used as the active region for
conventional nitride-based LEDs. In this structure,
the injected electrons can be confined inside the well
layers of MQW. As a result, these confined electrons
can recombine with holes to generate photons.
However, the carrier confinement will degrade with
the increased well width. One should maximize the
number of electrons recombined inside the MQW
active region so as to increase the light output efficiency and to reduce the leakage current. The possible
way to meet this requirement is to use the CART
structure. Rebane et al. (2000) suggest an LED structure with CART for improving the electron capture in
the quantum-well. The CART structure is to insert an
electron emitter layer and an electron tunneling barrier in between the MQW and the n-cladding layer of
the LED. The wide electron emitter layer serves to
capture electrons, which subsequently tunnel through
the tunneling barrier into the well layers of active
region. Therefore, the large electron capture rate and
carrier confinement effect can be both achieved.
Grudowski et al. (1997) reported that photoluminescence (PL) intensity of InGaN/GaN MQW
could be increased by introducing the Si dopant.
(b)
SiO2
NRC-IMS 3.0 kV 11.0 mm 3.00 k SE(L)
10.0 m
10 m
Figure 9 (a) Cross-sectional and (b) plan-view scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrographs of the conventional onestep epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG) structure (Ko et al., 2003).
(a)
37
(b)
SiO2
SiO2
10 m
10 m
(c)
SiO2
10 m
Figure 10 Two-step epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG) samples with a (a) 4-min, (b) 8-min, and (c) 16-min first-step lowtemperature growth time (Ko et al., 2003).
Figure 11 Plan-view scanning electron microscope

(SEM) micrograph of the two-step epitaxial lateral
overgrowth (ELOG) sample with an 8-min first-step
low-temperature growth time (Ko et al., 2003).
(a)
The moderate concentration of Si also reduced the

threshold pump density of stimulated emission
from InGaN/GaN MQW (Gainer et al., 1998). In
addition, it was observed that the thermal stability
of Si-doped MQW improved due to the prevented
formation of Ga vacancies (Kusakabe et al., 2005).
Wang et al. (2000) found that an obvious localization effect caused by slight Si doping in MQW
structures would lead to the enhanced mobility.
Therefore, the Si doping plays an important role
in improving the optical and electrical properties
of MQWs. In other words, the enhanced internal
quantum efficiency of LED should be realized with
the Si-doped MQW.
Another way to improve the internal quantum
efficiency of LED is to use QD structure in the active
region. The carrier localization effect becomes
(b)
Figure 12 Surface optical microscopy (OM) micrographs of (a) etched sample and (b) the etched control sample (Ko et al., 2003).
6.02.3.1 Charge Asymmetric Resonant

Tunneling
Figure 13 shows the band diagram of the InGaN/
GaN CART LED. As mentioned above, the CART
structure should enhance the LED light output
intensity because electrons are effectively captured
by the electron emitter layer. Then the captured
electrons tunnel through the electron tunneling barrier into the MQW active region, which, as a result,
leads to the larger electron capture rate and electron
confinement effect. Figure 14 shows the IV characteristics of the normal MQW and the CART
LEDs. At a 20-mA injection current, the forward
voltages for the normal MQW LED and the CART
GaN:Si
Normal MQW LED

Emitter width: 10 nm
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0.00
0.02
3
2
Voltage (V)
Figure 14 IV characteristics of charge asymmetric

resonant tunneling (CART) blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
with different emitter widths (Wen et al., 2002).
LEDs with the 10-, 20-, and 40-nm-thick electron

emitter layers were 4.16 V, 3.59 V, 3.58 V, and 3.66 V,
respectively. The lower forward voltage of CART
LEDs can be attributed to the better current spreading provided by the InGaN electron emitter layer.
Figure 15 shows the room-temperature EL intensity
at a 20-mA injection current of the CARD LEDs as a
function of electron emitter layer width. It was found
that the EL intensity increases initially with the
thicker electron emitter layer due to the increase of
electron capture rate. However, the EL intensity
tends to decrease, while the emitter layer width is
higher than 20 nm. This result could be caused by the
relaxation-induced defect generation and nonradiative recombination. Therefore, the CART structure
can, indeed, significantly enhance the output intensity of the nitride-based blue LEDs.
Figure 16 shows the IV characteristics of the
CART and normal green LEDs. The turn-on voltage
(about 2.2 V) of the CART LED is smaller than that
of the normal MQW LED. The forward voltage
InGaN
AlGaN:Mg
InGaN:Si
44
i-GaN
GaN:Mg
CB
EL intensity (mcd)
GaN:Si
0.10
Current (A)
significant and hence the recombination efficiency of

carriers can be increased. Therefore, InGaN/GaN
multiple quantum-dot (MQD) LEDs are being
developed by molecular MBE and MOCVD.
In Section 6.02.3.1, the characteristics of InGaN/
GaN blue and green LEDs with the CART structures are first demonstrated (Chen et al., 2002; Wen
et al., 2002). For comparison, a normal MQW LED
without the CART structure is also prepared. The
effects of the electron emitter layer width on the
optical and electrical properties of these blue LEDs
are also discussed. Section 6.02.3.2 deals with the
fabrication and analysis of InGaN/GaN MQW
LED with Si-doped barriers (Wu et al., 2002). The
effects of Si doping on the performance of InGaN/
GaN MQW LED are also discussed. Finally, optical
and electrical properties of InGaN/GaN MQD LED
grown by MOCVD are reported (Ji et al., 2004;
Su et al., 2004).
40
36
32
28
0
VB
Figure 13 Band diagram of the InGaN/GaN charge

asymmetric resonant tunneling (CART) light-emitting diode
(LED; Wen et al., 2002).
10
20
30
InGaN emitter width (nm)
40
Figure 15 Luminous intensity at a forward current of

20 mA of four charge asymmetric resonant tunneling (CART)
blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as a function of InGaN
emitter width (Wen et al., 2002).
Current (mA)
60
CART LED
MQW LED
40
20
0
0
2
3
Forward voltage (V)
Figure 16 IV characteristics of the charge asymmetric

resonant tunneling (CART) and normal green light-emitting
diodes (LEDs; Chen et al., 2002).
39
measured at 20 mA of the CART LED (3.2 V) is also

lower than that of the normal MQW LED (3.7 V).
Again, the lower forward voltage of the CART LED
is attributed to the good current spreading layer provided by the InGaN electron emitter layer. In addition,
it was found that the differential resistance of the
CART LED is smaller than that of the normal MQW
LED for the injection current between 20 and 40 mA.
For the CART LED, the possible reason for a sudden
decrease of differential resistance at 40 mA is that accumulated electrons in electron emitter layer tunnel into
MQW. Figure 17 shows the room-temperature EL
spectra of the CART and normal MQW green LED
with different injection currents. The EL emission peak
(a)
4000
l = 40 mA
l = 30 mA
l = 20 mA
l = 10 mA
l = 1 mA
EL intensity (a.u)
3000
2000
1000
0
450
550
500
600
0
Wavelength (nm)
(b)
l = 40 mA
l = 30 mA
l = 20 mA
l = 10 mA
l = 1 mA
EL intensity (a.u)
2000
1000
0
450
0
500
550
600
Wavelength (nm)
Figure 17 Room-temperature electroluminescence (EL) spectra of (a) the charge asymmetric resonant tunneling (CART) and
(b) normal multiple quantum-well (MQW) green light-emitting diode (LED) with different injection currents (Chen et al., 2002).
of the CART LED is around 525 nm with a full width

at half maximum (FWHM) of 33.6 nm under a 20-mA
current injection. In addition, a small blue shift
(10.7 meV) of EL spectra is observed as the injection
current increases from 1 to 40 mA for the CART LED,
which is less than that of the normal MQWLED
(17 meV). This result can be attributed to the reduced
strain with the insertion of the low indium content
emitter layer.
Figure 18 shows the integrated output power
intensity as a function of the injection current for
both CART and normal MQW green LED. For the
injection current <4 mA, the integrated output power
intensity of the CART LED is smaller than that of
the normal MQW LED. As compared to the normal
LED, however, the integrated output power intensity
of the CART LED increases much faster with the
injection current, and saturates at higher injection
current. At 20 mA, the output power and external
quantum efficiency are 4 mW and 6.25%, and
3 mW and 4.05% for the CART and normal MQW
LEDs, respectively.
6.02.3.2
Doped MQW
In general, InGaN/GaN MQW structures are grown

at a relatively LT in order to enhance indium content
in the well layers. However, an LT growth will
degrade the crystal quality of the GaN barrier layers.
This problem can be overcome by introducing Si
doping in the GaN layers. Besides, such a growth
technique can help the Coulomb screening of internal electric field due to polarization. In this section,
the influence of Si-doping on the optical and electrical properties of these InGaN/GaN MQW LEDs
is reported.
Figure 19 shows the IV characteristics of the

LEDs for unintentionally doped and Si-doped barriers. At the injection current of 20 mA, the forward
voltage was 4.52 V and 3.5 V for the LED with
unintentional doped barrier and Si-doped barrier,
respectively. It indicates that one can significantly
improve the electrical properties of nitride-based
LEDs by using Si-doped GaN barrier layers. The
dynamic resistance as a function of the applied forward bias is shown in Figure 20. It was found that the
dynamic resistance is decreased for the LED with a
Si-doped barrier due to the better crystal quality or
the smaller resistivity in the Si-doped barrier layers.
As a result, a smaller forward voltage is achieved.
Figure 21 shows the EL spectra with an injection
current of 20 mA for the two LEDs. The luminous
intensity at 20 mA was 25.1 mcd with a 475-nm EL
peak wavelength and a 29-nm EL FWHM for the
LED with an unintentionally doped barrier. On the
other hand, the luminous intensity at 20 mA was
36.1 mcd with a 468-nm EL peak wavelength and a
28-nm EL FWHM for the LED with Si-doped
barrier. The enhanced EL intensity of the LED
with a Si-doped barrier can be attributed to a higher
carrier concentration in the well layers or the
improved crystal quality.
6.02.3.3
Quantum-Dot
Heteroepitaxial growth of highly strained material

systems has been extensively investigated to achieve
the low-dimensional carrier confinement nanostructures. Although high-brightness InGaN/GaN MQW
LEDs are already commercially available, the LED
output intensity could be enhanced by further
confining the carriers with QD structure. The
0.10
Current (A)
Power (mW)
0.08
CART LED
MQW LED
Si-doped barrier LED

Unintentionally doped
barrier LED
0.06
0.04
0.02
0.00
0
0
0
10
20
Current (mA)
30
40
Figure 18 Integrated output power intensity as a function

of the injection current (Chen et al., 2002).
3
4
Voltage (V)
Figure 19 Typical IV characteristics of forward bias for

unintentionally doped and Si-doped barrier light-emitting
diode (LED; Wu et al., 2002).
Ni/Au transparent contact
109
Dynamic resistance ()
41
10
Unintentionally doped barrier LED
107
p-GaN
10
p-AIGaN
105
n-GaN
104
Nucleation layer
103
InGaN/GaN MQD
102
101
n-electrode
Ti/Al/Ti/Au
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
Forward voltage (V)
4.0
Sapphire
Figure 22 Schematic structure for the blue light-emitting

diode (LED) with InGaN/GaN multiple quantum-dot (MQD)
active region (Ji et al., 2004).
Figure 20 Dynamic resistance depends on the applied

voltage for the unintentionally doped and Si-doped barrier
light-emitting diode (LED) at forward operation (Wu et al., 2002).
[0001]
468 nm
Room-temperature
EL@20 mA
6000
EL intensity (a.u)
5000
475 nm
4000

3000
2000
Unintentionally doped
barrier LED
1000
0
300
350
400
500
550
450
Wavelength (nm)
600
650
Figure 21 Electroluminescence (EL) spectra of the

unintentionally doped barrier and Si-doped barrier
light-emitting diode (LED) at forward currents of 20 mA
(Wu et al., 2002).
self-assembly of strain-induced islands grown

by MOCVD paves the way for zero-dimensional
quantum structures without overcoming the limitations of lithography. In this section, the optical and
electrical properties of the InGaN/GaN MQD
LEDs are demonstrated and discussed.
Figure 22 shows the LED with MQD structure. It
should be noted that the interrupted growth method
was used in order to achieve InGaN QD well layers.
A 1.2-nm-thick InGaN layer was first deposited,
followed by the interrupted growth for 12 s and the
deposition of 1.2-nm-thick InGaN layer. During the
growth of InGaN/GaN MQD active region, nitrogen was used as the carrier gas for increasing the
indium incorporation rate. Figure 23 shows the
cross-sectional high-resolution transmission electron
microscopy (HRTEM) image for an InGaN QD
embedded in InGaN/GaN MQD active region of
3.00 nm
Figure 23 High-resolution transmission electron
microscopy (HRTEM) image of an InGaN quantum-dot (QD)
embedded in multiple quantum-dot (MQD) light-emitting
diode (LED) structure (Ji et al., 2004).
LED structure. It reveals that a typical dot is pyramidal with a 10-nm diameter and a 3-nm height. The
IV characteristic of the MQD LED is shown in
Figure 24. With a 20-mA injection current, the forward voltage was only 3.1 V, which is smaller than
the 3.5-V forward voltage observed from the conventional MQW LED. This result can be attributed to
the effectiveness of QD in reducing forward voltage
due to the improved confinement effect of carriers.
Figure 25 shows room-temperature EL spectrum
of the fabricated MQD LED with an injection current of 20 mA. It was found that the EL intensity was
29.4 mcd at 483 nm with the FWHM of 30 nm. In
addition, the undulation behavior observed from the
EL spectrum is probably due to the FabryPerot
interferences within the epitaxial layers. Figure 26
illustrates the EL peak position as a function of
injection current for the MQD LED and conventional MQW LED. For MQD LED, there was a
huge 68.4-meV EL blue shift as the injection current
increased from 3 to 50 mA. On the other hand, the EL
0.12
0.10
Current (A)
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0.00
2.5
2.0
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
Voltage (V)
Figure 24 The IV characteristic of the multiple quantumdot (MQD) light-emitting diode (LED; Ji et al., 2004).
EL intensity (a.u.)
483 nm
6.02.4 Light Extraction

Enhancement
I = 20 mA
400
450
500
550
Wavelength (nm)
Figure 25 Room-temperature electroluminescence (EL)
spectrum at the forward injection current of 20 mA (Su et al.,
2004).
500
MQD LED
MQW LED
495
490
EL peak (nm)
blue shift observed from the MQW LED was about

38 meV in the same current range. These results
suggest that the strain-induced QDs can strengthen
band-filling effect as the injection current increases.
Hence, the EL blue shift will become much larger.
Recently, Xu et al. (2007) found that the QD
density deceased with the higher growth temperature. For the cathodoluminescence spectra, the
emission peak wavelength of InGaN MQD is longer
than that of InGaN QD single layer due to the
quantum-confined Stark effect. Park et al. (2007)
used silicon carbon nitride (SiCN) interfacial layer
to grow LED with quasi-quantum-dot (QQD) active
layer. The PL intensity and optical output power of
QQD-LED showed about 15% and 10% improvements, respectively. Therefore, the QQD active layer
also gives rise to high internal quantum efficiency
due to the enhanced carrier localization effect as well
as the reduced piezoelectric field.
Because of their environment friendly, energy-saving,

and compact attributes, LEDs have been a promising
candidate for general SSL. However, the external
quantum efficiency of LEDs is mostly limited by
their low light extraction efficiency caused by the
large difference of the refractive index between LED
die and external medium. According to Snells law, the
critical angle of total internal reflection is about 23 for
GaN-based LEDs if the external medium is air, and
there is only 4% of emitting light that can escape from
each surface of LED die (Lee et al., 2003). Therefore,
many methods have been proposed for increasing the
light extraction efficiency, including PSS, DBR, surface roughening, wafer bonding, and flip chip.
485
6.02.4.1
Patterned Substrate
480
475
470
465
10
20
30
Injection current (mA)
40
50
Figure 26 Peak wavelength of electroluminescence (EL)

spectra as a function of injection current for multiple
quantum-dot (MQD) and multiple quantum-well (MQW)
light-emitting diodes (LEDs; Ji et al., 2004).
The large-area GaN substrates are still difficult to

fabricate. Due to the lack of suitable substrate with
structural and thermal matching to GaN, it is
quite difficult to grow the high-quality GaN
thin film. Forcing heteroepitaxial growth of GaN thin
films onto dissimilar substrates, such as sapphire or
SiC, sapphire wafers are often served as the substrates due to their high chemical and thermal
stability in GaN-based devices. Owing to the large
lattice mismatch and thermal expansion between
epitaxial GaN film and sapphire substrate, high-density dislocations range from 109 to 1010 cm2 (Kachi
et al., 1998). The TDs in the GaN-based semiconductors usually act as nonradiative recombination centers.
High TD densities cause the internal quantum efficiency of the LED to be reduced. The other problem is
the total internal reflection in LED. The light extraction efficiency of the LED is limited by the critical
angle loss, which is due to the large difference in
refractive index between the GaN film and the surrounding material. Most of the lights in the active
region gradually disappear due to total internal reflection. The PSS can reduce the TDs and increase the
light extraction. The most early report was initiated in
2001 (in Japan) by Tadatomo et al. (2001). In his study,
the PSS with parallel grooves along the <1120>
direction was fabricated by standard photolithography
and subsequent etched by reactive ion etching (RIE).
Besides the better GaN crystal quality, the shape of the
sapphire patterns between the GaN (n 2.54) and
sapphire (n 1.79) can effectively scatter the light
which guided inside an LED chip (shown in
Figure 27). Several groups have demonstrated direct
lateral epitaxy growth onto a stripe-type or circulartype PSS (Feng and Lau, 2005; Wang et al., 2005b).
Besides the dry-etching method, in recent years, wetetching process is being used (Lee et al., 2006b). They
believe that damage on sapphire surface induced by
dry etching can be eliminated. Furthermore, wet etching can etch along the crystalline facet evolving on
sapphire substrates with the etching time. Therefore,
it can facilitate superior light extraction efficiency than
using dry-etching technique.
6.02.4.1.1
Dry etching
The plasma dry-etching process takes place in a highvacuum chamber, and the glow discharge occurs with
some etching gas and high applied power.
Subsequently, the ion and neutral radicals having
high energy and chemical activity are produced to
etch the elements on the top of sapphire substrates.
The dry-etching process contains the physical
43
bombardment and chemical reaction. The physical

bombardment is dominated by the acceleration of
energetic ions formed by the radio frequency (RF)
power. In addition, the chemical bonding of the Al
and O is very strong. Hence, in sapphire etching, high
ion bombardment is needed. In addition to highpower etching, sapphire etching has to remove both
the oxygen, by using BCl3, and the Al by Cl or Br.
Then it provides the great anisotropic profile, also
resulting in some significant damages, such as rough
surface morphology, or poor selectivity for mask and
sapphire.
The PSS was prepared using a periodic hole pattern on the (0001) sapphire with different etching
depths (Wang et al., 2005b). The hole dimension
(diameter: 3 mm; spacing: 3 mm) was generated by a
standard photolithography process. The depth of the
sapphire was etched to 1.5 mm using an ICP etcher.
After etching, the corresponding photograph of the
PSS was examined by SEM as shown in Figure 28.
The cross-sectional TEM images of GaN epilayer
grown on conventional sapphire substrate and PSS
with 0.5- and 1.5-mm depth are shown in Figures
29(a)29(c). From the TEM studies, the use of PSS
with an optimum pattern depth 1.5 mm was confirmed to be an efficient way to reduce the TDs in
the GaN microstructure.
Figure 30 shows the forward IV characteristics
of the n-UV LEDs with and without PSS. The corresponding forward voltages at 20 mA were 3.56 and
3.59 V, respectively. This indicates that the PSS LED
has similar IV characteristic as compared with that
of the conventional LED. Figure 31 presents the
reverse IV characteristics of both LEDs. The leakage currents of the PSS LED and conventional LED
at a reverse voltage of 5 V were around 0.32 and
1.45 nA, respectively. The reverse leakage current
of the PSS LED was smaller than that of the conventional LED. The decrease in leakage current could be
attributed to the elimination of TDs in the GaN film
using the PSS. Figure 32 presents the light output
characteristics of the conventional and PSS LEDs.
p-GaN
MQW
n-GaN
u-GaN
Conventional (Solid line) and patterned

sapphire substrate (dash line)
Figure 27 The light scattering path of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with conventional (solid line) and patterned sapphire
substrate (dash line).
0
3 m
1.5 m
1 m
~75
Figure 28 Scanning electron microscope (SEM)

micrograph of patterned sapphire substrate (PSS) before
epitaxial growth (Wang et al., 2005b).
Current (A)
102
Conventional LED: Ir = 1.45 nA @ 5V

PSS LED: Ir = 0.32 nA @ 5V
104
106
5 V
108
1010
8
(a)
GaN
200 nm
(b)
GaN
Sapphire
500 nm
(c)
GaN
500 nm
Sapphire
Figure 29 Cross-sectional transmission electron

microscope (TEM) image of GaN epilayer grown on (a)
conventional sapphire substrate, (b) patterned sapphire
substrate (PSS) with depth 0.5 mm, and (c) PSS with depth
1.5 mm (Wang et al., 2005b).
The output power of PSS LED at 20-mA injection

current was estimated to be 10.4 mW. In contrast, the
conventional LED at 20 mA was 8.6 mW. As shown in
Figure 31, the enhancement of optical output power
could be attributed to the effective suppression
of leakage current using the PSS method. The corresponding room-temperature EL spectra of both LEDs
are also shown in the inset of Figure 32. The EL peak
positions of the PSS and conventional LEDs were
located at 409 and 408 nm, respectively. The EL
intensity of the PSS LED is indicated from a comparison with a conventional LED as higher by about 63%.
It is well known that the MQW emission efficiency is
related to the leakage current through dislocations.
PSS LED
Conventional LED
0.08
PSS LED
Conventional LED
0.06
0.04
20
15
@20 mA
10
0.02
0
p = 409 nm
Intensity (a.u.)
Output power (mW)
25
0
2
Voltage (V)
Figure 31 Reverse IV characteristics of light-emitting

diodes (LEDs) with and without patterned sapphire
substrate (PSS) (Wang et al., 2005b).
Sapphire
Current (A)
380 400
420
440
Wavelength (nm)
20
40
60
80
100
Current (mA)
0
Voltage (V)
Figure 30 Forward IV characteristics of patterned
sapphire substrate (LEDs) with and without patterned
sapphire substrate (PSS) (Wang et al., 2005b).
Figure 32 Output power as a function of injection current

for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with and without a patterned
sapphire substrate (PSS). The inset image shows the
room-temperature electroluminescence (EL) spectra
(Wang et al., 2005b).
The geometrical shape of the sapphire patterns

can effectively scatter or redirect the guided light
inside an LED chip to find escape cones, such as
the stripe (Feng and Lau, 2005) or hemispherical
shape (Lee et al., 2006a). However, the geometrical
size of the sapphire patterns is focused on the micron
magnitude. For the same area of sapphire substrate,
the reduced geometrical size of sapphire patterns can
increase the number of patterns, and then increase
the opportunity of light scattering (Wang et al., 2007).
The nano-PSS can be used to improve the brightness
of LED further (Chen et al., 2008; Gao et al., 2008).
6.02.4.1.2
Wet etching
The wet-etching technology has been investigated
for a long time, and it is already mature for its
commercial benefits and convenient preparation.
The wet-etching process can reduce the surface
damage, which may be caused by the dry-etching
process. The inclined crystal planes of the pattern
on sapphire provide the different growth rates to
GaN grown on the wet-etched PSS, which made
the GaN lateral growth with low TD density. The
sapphire substrate was etching by H2SO4 or H3PO4based solution at a high etching temperature. The
sapphire wet-etching rate can be related to the acid
solution composition and etching temperature.
However, today, owing to the trend of scaling down
in semiconductor device, the wet etching would
45
cause some problems, especially the isotropic etching

profiles and the difficult control of the etching rate.
The fabrication process of wet-etched PSSs is illustrated as follows. The SiO2 film with hole-patterns of
3-mm diameter and 3-mm spacing was deposited onto
the sapphire substrate by PECVD system and defined
by standard photolithography to serve as the wetetching mask. The sapphire substrate was then etched
using 300 C H3PO4-based solution (Lee et al., 2006).
The sapphire wet-etching rate is about 1 mm min1
and can be related to the H3PO4 composition and
etching temperature (Kim, 2005). Figures 33 and 34
show the top and cross-sectional SEM images of PSS
of the etching time of 90 s. The depth of the sapphire
was etched to 1.5 mm. The crystallography-etched
pattern of a (0001) sapphire substrate has a flat surface
of C-plane with a triangle shape in the center.
Surrounding the triangle-shape-plane are three facets
of R-plane with an angle of 57 against C-axis.
Therefore, the triangle-shaped flat surface of C-plane
in the pattern center finally vanishes as etching time
increases. Figure 35 shows a simple schematic illustration of the phenomenon mentioned above. The
inclined surface of the crystallography-etched facet
of R-plane increases with the etching time, increasing
the opportunity of the guided light to be extracted
outside the LED chip. The large inclined crystallography-etched surface with longer etching time also
indicates the deep depth of the sapphire pattern, and it
would take more effort for optimizing the epitaxial
Figure 33 Top-view scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of wet-etched patterned sapphire substrate (PSS)
(Lee et al., 2006).
Figure 34 Cross-sectional view scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of wet-etched patterned sapphire substrate
(PSS) (Lee et al., 2006).
Air
MQW
Sapphire
R-plane
Etching time
C-plane
57
Figure 35 Evolution of sapphire patterns with etching time (Lee et al., 2006).
growth condition to obtain a flat surface of GaN film

for the subsequent process. Therefore, the sapphire
etching time was chosen as 30 s and the depth of the
sapphire was etched to 0.5 mm. It provides a flat surface
of a triangle-shaped C-plane in the pattern center,
which is relatively suitable and easy for the subsequent
epitaxial growth.
Figure 36 shows the IV characteristic of the
conventional and PSS LEDs. No significant difference of the IV curves indicates that no damage
occurred on the epitaxial film of PSS LEDs fabricated by chemical wet etching.
Figure 37 shows the measurement results of

room-temperature output power and external quantum efficiency of conventional and PSS LEDs as a
function of the driving current. The light output
powers of the conventional and PSS LEDs at 20-mA
injection current are 7.8 and 9 mW, respectively.
The improvement factor of approximately 1.15 was
achieved by adopting the wet-etched PSS. According
to this figure, the external quantum efficiencies at
20 mA are 14.2% and 16.4% for conventional and
PSS LEDs, respectively. Therefore, the improvement
of the external quantum efficiency of PSS LED has
7
5
4
3
Conventional LED
PSS LED
2
1
0
0
20
40
60
80
100
Current (mA)
120
140
Figure 36 The IV characteristics of conventional and

wet-etched patterned sapphire substrate (PSS) lightemitting diodes (LEDs; Lee et al., 2006).
contributed to the enhancement of light extraction

efficiency via the crystallography-etched facets that
efficiently redirect guided light to find escape cones.
6.02.4.2
Distributed Bragg Reflector
Basic concept of light extraction efficiency enhancement. For

the purpose of enhancing light extraction efficiency,
and increasing the light output power, there are two
basic concepts to realize this goal. The first one is
improving the reflectivity on the bottom side of the
LED chip, and the second one is decreasing the
reflectivity of the emission surface. For the latter
concept, we can introduce periodic structure such
as photonic crystal (PC; Fujita et al., 2005; David
et al., 2005) or irregular surface roughening (Lee
et al., 2007), which are helpful in decreasing surface
reflectivity, and are discussed subsequently. The
most straightforward method of increasing bottom
reflectivity is metal coating on the back surface of
LED dies (Huang et al., 2006b; Wong et al., 1999), or

the bowl on lead frame in LED package can also help
to reflect the emission light from bottom side.
However, both of these methods can only slightly
increase the brightness, because the internal quantum
efficiency and photon recycling are still unimproved
in the LED structure.
If we can introduce a built-in mirror in the LED
structure, it can prevent photons from traveling
through the bottom side, which may be absorbed by
impurity or defects and eventually become waste heat.
Moreover, this mirror can also reflect the photons and
redirect the light to the emitting surface and improve
the light extraction efficiency (Figure 38).
The most commonly used mirror that can be well
integrated with semiconductor photonic devices is
the so-called distributed Bragg reflector. It is basically composed of periodically interlaced dielectric
or semiconductor layers; sometimes, the etched air
gap and un-etched semiconductor material can also
form DBR structure. The refractive indices of each
adjacent layer are different, and according to the
Snells law, when light is incident on these interfaces,
it will be partially reflected and refracted. If the
thickness of each layer can be precisely controlled
and exactly equal to quarter wavelength of the incident light (1/4), the reflected light from many
interfaces can superimpose with each other and
form constructive interference. If the period of the
alternative layers is enough, most of the incident
light will be reflected and the layers act as a highquality reflector (as illustrated in Figure 39).
The reflectivity of DBR structure can be calculated by using the following equation:
45
20
40
18
15%
16
Power (mW)
35
14
30
12
25
10
20
15
Power of conventional LED
10
Power of pass LED

External efficiency of conventional LED
External efficiency of PSS LED
6
4
External efficiency (%)
Voltage (V)
2
0
0
0
20
40
60
47
80 100 120 140 160 180 200

Current (mA)
Figure 37 Light output power and external quantum efficiency of conventional and wet-etched patterned sapphire
substrate (PSS) light-emitting diodes (LEDs; Lee et al., 2006).
(a)
(b)
4
GaN buffer
substrate
Substrate
Figure 38 Schematic illustration of GaN light-emitting
diode (LED) (a) without and (b) with a bottom reflector.
Power (mw)
DBR
3
2
Conventional LED
DBR LED
Al-reflector LED
1
nh
nl
nh
nl
nh
nl
nh
nl
...
10
20
30
40
50
Current (mA)
Figure 40 The LI characteristics of nitride-based lightemitting diodes (LEDs) with SiO2/TiO2 distributed Bragg
reflectors (DBRs), Al-reflector, and conventional structure
(Hsu et al., 2003).
Figure 39 Schematic illustration of the distributed Bragg

reflector, where nh and nl represent the high and low
refractive indices of two adjacent materials, respectively.
"
R
na nh 2N ns nl 2N
na nh 2N ns nl 2N
#2
where na, nh, nl, and ns are the respective refractive

indices of the surrounding medium (e.g., air na 1),
the two alternating materials, and the substrate; and
N is the period number of alternating layers of high/
low refractive index materials.
From the above equation we can find that the
reflectivity is dominated by the refractive index difference between two different materials and the
period number. Hence, we can enhance the reflectivity by increasing the DBR pair number, or by
carefully choosing the materials with higher refractive index difference. In general, the dielectric
material can offer higher refractive index contrast,
such as TiO2/SiO2, Si3N4/SiO2, and Ta2O5/SiO2,
can provide high refractive index contrast, and as a
result we need only a few pairs of DBR to obtain high
reflectivity. However, dielectric DBRs have a serious
drawback, which is the electric insulating property.
As most of the time we need to inject current to
generate electronhole pairs or collect light current
via the electrodes in optoelectronic devices, the insulating dielectric DBR will make the fabrication more
complicated and costly. Furthermore, dielectric DBR
layers are typically amorphous and cannot be epitaxially grown on semiconductor substrate directly. If
we want to add an additional dielectric DBR on the
bottom side of GaN LED, it is necessary to introduce
laser lift-off (LLO) technology to separate the GaN
epitaxial structure from sapphire substrate (Wong

et al., 1999), in order to fabricate dielectric DBR on
the bottom surface by using either deposition or
wafer bonding methods (Tawara et al., 2003). This
will not only increase the processing difficulty and
cost, but also decrease the yield and productivity at
the same time. Figure 40 shows the LI characteristics improved by introducing an additional SiO2/
TiO2 DBR on the backside of sapphire substrate. The
LI curves of LEDs with and without Al-reflector on
the backside of sapphire substrate are also plotted in
the figure for comparison. The EL intensity at 20-mA
driving current of LEDs with DBR and Al-reflector
are 12.7% and 8.2% larger than the conventional
LED, respectively (Hsu et al., 2003).
Of course, we can also use semiconductor materials to form DBR structure. The most effective and
well-developed semiconductor DBR is GaAs/
AlGaAs material system. As the lattice mismatch
between GaAs and AlGaAs is very small, they can
be directly grown on GaAs substrate without inducing any crack or dislocation. The refractive index
contrast is also large enough in GaAs/AlGaAs material system (nGaAs 3.64 and nAlAs 2.99 at 850-nm
wavelength range), so this combination can provide
excellent reflectivity and stop bandwidth in red and
infrared (IR) region. However, unfortunately, the
lattice mismatch between GaAs/AlGaAs and GaN
material system is too large to be applied for monolithic epitaxial growth. One of the unwanted features
is that the refractive index contrast of GaN/AlGaN
material system is very low (n 0.2). Although
increasing the Al composition in AlGaN can increase
the index contrast (Butte et al., 2005), it will increase
the lattice mismatch and result in crack and dislocation at the same time. This crack problem can be
avoided by the insertion of thin AlN layers to compensate the strain (Waldrip et al., 2001; Zhang et al.,
2006), but the maximum reflectivity and stop bandwidth of GaN/AlGaN DBR are still limited because
of the low refractive index contrast.
Some research groups found that if the gallium in
AlGaN can be replaced by indium and formed
Al1 xInxN, the refractive index contrast of GaN/
AlInN can be slightly increased without increasing
the lattice mismatch. Nevertheless, the In composition cannot be too high (x < 18%) because the energy
band gap will become too large to conduct current.
By using this combination, the GaN/AlInN DBR has
been successfully grown on sapphire substrate and
provided high reflectivity for light-emitting device
application (Dorsaz et al., 2005).
Recently, some researchers also proposed the
insertion of AlN/GaN superlattices into the AlN/
GaN DBR structure during the epitaxial growth for
the purpose of reducing the biaxial tensile strain in
AlN/GaN DBR. By using this method, they can grow
29 pairs of crack-free AlN/GaN DBR and achieve
99.4% high reflectivity (Huang et al., 2006a).
Figure 41 shows the simulation result of reflectance
spectra of AlN/GaN, AlInN/GaN, and AlGaN/GaN
DBRs. It is obvious that the AlN/GaN DBR possesses
higher maximum reflectivity and wider stop bandwidth with the same period number, because the
refractive index contrast between AlN and GaN is
larger then the other two material combinations.
This crack-free GaN-based DBR technology is
very important. The nitride DBR can not only help
to improve the light extraction efficiency of blue LED,
but it is also an essential component for the fabrication

of vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). The
first continuous-wave (cw) lasing of current-injection
blue nitride VCSEL was basically composed of bottom
GaN/AlN and top Ta2O5/SiO2 hybrid DBRs (Lu
et al., 2008). The reason for using top dielectric DBR
is just because the larger index contrast can provide
higher reflectivity with fewer DBR pairs. Figure 42
shows the relations between reflectivity and DBR
period numbers of three different materials combinations. The top and bottom DBRs form a resonant
microcavity and allowed a narrow spectral width
light to pass through the structure. If the light-emitting
device can be operated with stimulated emission condition, it is so-called microcavity laser or VCSEL. On
the contrary, if the reflectivity is not high enough and
the devices can only be operated with spontaneous
emission, it is called resonant cavity light-emitting
diode (RCLED). Figure 43 shows the GaN-based
RCLED emission spectrum with several narrow
peaks (Huang et al., 2006b). This result also shows
that the use of DBR structure in light-emitting devices
can help to narrow the emission spectrum, and obtain
more pure light output wavelength.
6.02.4.3
Surface and Periphery Treatment
To improve the light extraction efficiency,

surface roughening technique is utilized. Several
surface roughening techniques are introduced as
following.
1.1
1.0
1.0
0.9
Stop bandwidth
0.6
0.4
SiO2/TiO2 @400 nm
AlAs/GaAs @980 nm
AlN/GaN @400 nm
0.8
Reflectivity
AlN/GaN DBR x 30 pairs

AlInN/GaN DBR x 30 pairs
AlGaN/GaN DBR x 30 pairs
0.8
Reflectivity
49
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.0
300
0.0
350
400
450
Wavelength (nm)
500
Figure 41 Reflectance spectra simulation result of 30

pairs AlN/GaN, AlInN/GaN, and AlGaN/GaN distributed
Bragg reflectors (DBRs).
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Pairs number
Figure 42 Relation between reflectivity and distributed
Bragg reflector (DBR) pairs number of three different
material combinations.
EL intensity (a.u.)
DBR/LED/Ag/Si RCLED
400
35 nm
450
500
550
Wavelength (nm)
600
650
Figure 43 Room-temperature electroluminescence (EL)

spectrum of GaN-based green resonant cavity lightemitting diode (RCLED; Huang et al., 2006b).
6.02.4.3.1
Epitaxial parameters in MOCVD

The LED output intensity can be enhanced by changing the morphology of the top p-GaN layer. The
surface morphology of the top p-GaN layer depends
on its growth temperature (Liu et al., 2004) or
surface treatment (Tsai et al., 2005; Hsu et al., 2005).
Figure 44 shows an SEM image of the 800 C-grown
p-GaN epitaxial layer. Such a rough surface could be
attributed to the fact that Ga atoms might not have
enough energy to migrate to proper sites at LT.
Thus, lateral growth rate of GaN will become smaller. TEM image is also shown in the inset of
Figure 44. Many triangular features exist at the
p-GaN surface. These triangular features originated

from the V-defects and/or TDs. The LT growth
condition could result in many pits on the p-GaN
surface to increase the escape probability of internal
light and hence an enhancement of light extraction
efficiency.
Figure 45(a) shows IV characteristics of the
nitride-based LEDs with an 800 C p-GaN cap layer
(LED I) and a 1000 C p-GaN cap layer (LED II). It
was found that the 20-mA forward voltages of LEDs
with an 800 C and a 1000 C p-GaN cap layer were
3.36 and 3.68 V, respectively. Since the higher hole
concentration in the 800 C-grown p-GaN cap layer
could provide a better current spreading, we can thus
achieve a smaller operation voltage from LED with an
800 C p-GaN cap layer. On the other hand, it was
found that the leakage currents were 4.8 and 0.43 mA
for LEDs with an 800 C and a 1000 C p-GaN cap
layer, respectively, when we applied a 25-V reverse
bias onto these LEDs (as shown in Figure 45(b)). In
other words, the leakage current was much larger for
LEDI. Such a large leakage current could be attributed
to the relatively poor crystal quality of the LT p-GaN
cap layer.
Figure 46 shows LI characteristics for the LEDs
with 800 C and 1000 C p-GaN cap layer. At low
injection currents, it can be seen that the output
powers of both LEDs increased linearly with the
injection current. However, the LED output powers
p-Gall
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ncu
WD14.5 mm 15.0 kv 30 k
1 m
Figure 44 Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of the 800 C-grown p-GaN epitaxial layer. Transmission electron
microscope (TEM) image of this sample is shown in the inset (Liu et al., 2004).
(a) 90
(b)
70
LEDl: p-GaN 800 C
60
LEDll: p-GaN 1000 C
Reverse current (mA)
80
Current (mA)
51
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
3
4
Voltage (V)
2
LEDl: p-GaN 800 C
LEDll: p-GaN 1000 C
4
30
25
20
15
10
Voltage (V)
Figure 45 (a) Forward IV characteristics of the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with 800 C and 1000 C p-GaN cap layer,
respectively. (b) Reverse IV characteristics of the LEDs with 800 C and 1000 C p-GaN cap layer, respectively (Liu et al., 2004).
Output power (mW)
12
LEDI: p-GaN 800 C
10
LEDI: p-GaN 1000 C
8
6
4
2
0
20
60
80
40
100
Figure 46 Light output power of the light-emitting diodes

(LEDs) with an 800 C and 1000 C p-GaN cap layer
(Liu et al., 2004).
seem to saturate slightly for both devices when the

injection current was further increased. Under the
same injection current, it was found that EL intensity
of LED with an 800 C-grown p-GaN cap layer was
much larger than that of LED with a 1000 C-grown
p-GaN cap layer. In other words, the LED output
power could be enhanced by more than 80% with
800 C-grown p-GaN cap layer, as compared to
1000 C-grown p-GaN cap layer. A rough surface
results in at least a partial reduction in the total
internal reflection. Therefore, photons can thus
escape from the LED more easily.
Another approach was Mg or Si treatment
demonstrated to achieve a naturally textured surface
in GaN-based LEDs. In Mg treatment process, a
growth-interruption step and a surface treatment
using CP2Mg were simultaneously performed to
form a plurality of nuclei sites on the surface of the
first p-GaN contact layer, and then a second p-GaN
contact layer was grown over the nuclei sites so as to
create a rough surface having truncated pyramids
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1 m WD 6.7mm
Figure 47 Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of

light-emitting diode (LED) with Mg-treatment process
(Tsai et al., 2005).
(Tsai et al., 2005). Figure 47 shows an SEM image

of the sample with the Mg-treatment process. The
growth mechanism of the truncated pyramids is that
during the growth-interruption step, only CP2Mg
and NH3 were introduced into the growth chamber
and other growth conditions were kept the same.
This treatment might form many Mg1 xNx nuclei
sites on the first p-GaN contact layer and thereby
promote the subsequent growth of truncated pyramids. Since three-dimensional growth of p-GaN is
dominant as compared to the islands expanding laterally and coalescing, many truncated pyramids on
the p-GaN contact layer can be achieved. In Si
treatment process, after the growth of Mg-doped
p-GaN layer, we subsequently closed the Ga flow
and opened the Si flow (Hsu et al., 2005). A p-GaN
layer was then grown again after this Si treatment.
Figure 48 shows an SEM image of p-GaN layer with
Si treatment, respectively. The surface morphology
of LEDs. Through the finite-difference time-domain

(FDTD) calculation, the conditions of PC structures
can be optimized to improve the light output pattern
and output power of LEDs. Through the optimized
selectivity, the microlens structures apply to the
increase of light pattern and light intensity of LEDs.
The random roughness, PC structure, and microlens
structure are discussed in the following:
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light-emitting diode (LED) with Si-treatment process
(Hsu et al., 2005).
of the LED with Si treatment p-GaN epitaxial layer

was rough with high density of GaN grains on the
surface.
6.02.4.3.2
Etching
The dry-etching and wet-etching process can be
applied to realize the surface roughening structures
of LEDs. Dry etching exhibits high etching rates,
anisotropic and smooth profiles; wet etching exhibits
high simple, inexpensive, and high selectivity. The
light intensities of LEDs are enhanced by these etching techniques.
Dry etching. Previously, it has been shown that the
dry-etching process, which increased the light extraction efficiency, can be performed by random roughness
(Kao et al., 2007), PC structure (Orita et al., 2004), and
microlens structure (Kim et al., 2005a). Generally, the
light output power could be significantly increased
during the increase of surface roughness on top layer
1 Random. Randomly roughening top surface

reduces internal light reflection and scatters the
light outward (Huh et al., 2002; Gao et al., 2004;
Fujii et al., 2004; Lin et al., 2005a; Huang et al.,
2005b; Shen et al., 2006). To form the random surface
roughening structure, the n-GaN surface of p-side
down LEDs was etched by ICP-RIE with three
different etching times (1, 3.5, and 5 min). For these
three conditions, the root mean square (rms) values
of surface roughness are 7.4, 32.9, and 44.6 nm,
respectively. Figure 49 shows the SEM images of
the surface roughening LEDs.
Figure 50 shows the IV and light output characteristics of surface roughening and conventional LEDs.
With a 20-mA injection current, the light output
powers of LED I (1 min), LED II (3.5 min), LED III
(5 min), and conventional LED were about 9.98, 14.96,
16.29, and 7.67 mW, respectively. The output power
was enhanced due to the reduction of absorption
length in vertical direction and the light scattering
from the roughened surface. The IV curves of these
devices were almost identical. With 20-mA injection
current, the voltages were all around 4.5 V.
2 Photonic crystal. To fabricate the PC structure
on the surface of LED, e-beam lithography is utilized to form the triangular lattice pattern of PC
(Ichikawa and Baba, 2004; Orita et al., 2004; Oder
et al., 2004; Shakya et al., 2004; Wierer et al., 2004).
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Figure 49 Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the surface roughening light-emitting diodes (LEDs) (Kao et al., 2007).
Conventional LED
LED I (1 min)
LED II (3.5 min)
LED III (5 min)
Voltage (V)
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
1
0
Output power (mW)
5
0
10
20
30
Current (mA)
40
50
Figure 50 IV and LI characteristics of the conventional

and surface roughening light-emitting diodes (LEDs; Kao
et al., 2007).
The PC structure can also be fabricated by using

holography (Kim et al., 2005b) and nano-imprint
lithography (Byeon et al., 2007). After the etched
area was defined, the p-GaN layer was etched
to form columns through ICP-RIE using BCl3.
Figure 51 shows the cross-sectional view of PC
LED. The height of the PC columns is 0.25 mm
and each LED has a different pitch, from 0.6 to
2.0 mm. The filling factor, the ratio of column size
to unit lattice area, is fixed at 0.5. The SEM image
of PC structure is shown in Figure 52.
Surface 2D photonic crystal
p-Contact pad
Transparent electrode
p-Gan
cladding layer
n-Contact pad
Figure 53 shows the IV and light output characteristics of PC LED compared with those of conventional
LED. Compared with conventional LED, the output of
the PC LED was about 1.5 times improvement at
20-mA injection current. Although the transparent electrode is formed on the patterned p-GaN layer, the bias
voltage of PC LED at 10 mA slightly increases by about
10% compared with that of conventional LED.
3 Microlens. As another way of texturing the LEDs,
microlens array was formed by a combination of
photoresist re-flowing method and plasma etching
process. To form microlens array, the lens-shaped
photoresist was formed by the post-baking of the
photoresist on the hot plate at 200 C. Then dryetching process was performed by ICP-RIE.
Figure 54 shows the SEM images of the microlens
array formed on the top layer of LED.
The comparison of light emission intensities is
shown in Figure 55. Compared to the planar surface
LED, the light emission intensities of the LEDs with
5- and 10-mm microlens arrays were increased by
about 100% and 40%, respectively. The extraction
efficiency is increased due to the increase of critical
angle at the surface between GaN/ITO and air by
the surface curvature.
Wet etching. To fabricate wet-etched rough LEDs
(Huang et al., 2005a), Ni thin film was deposited on a
p-GaN surface with a thickness of 5 nm by e-beam
evaporation. The metal Ni-mask on p-GaN surface
was formed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at
12
n-GaN
cladding layer
InGaN
active layer
53
PhC LED
Sapphire substrate
Non-PC LED
10
Light output (a.u.)
Bias voltage (V)
Figure 51 Cross-sectional view of photonic crystal lightemitting diode (LED; Orita et al., 2004).
0
0
photonic crystal structure (Orita et al., 2004).
4
6
8
Forward current (mA)
10
Figure 53 IV and LI characteristics of conventional and

photonic crystal light-emitting diode (LED; Orita et al., 2004).
300 m
10 Oum
Figure 54 Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the microlens array formed on the top layer of light-emitting
diode (LED; Kim et al., 2005).
Planner VLED
Microlens-array-applied VLED (10 m)
Microlens-array-applied VLED (5 m)
Emmission intensity (a.u.)
16000
12000
8000
4000
5
4
3
0
2
400
450
500
Wavelength (nm)
Figure 55 Light emission intensities of conventional and

microlens light-emitting diode (LEDs; Kim et al., 2005).
Figure 56 Atomic force microscopy (AFM) image of wetetched rough light-emitting diode (LED; Huang et al., 2005a).
850 C for 1 min. Then, LEDs were performed by

wet-etching technique, utilizing a boiling 85%
H3PO4 solution for a 4-min etching. The etching
rate of the p-GaN layer in boiling 85% H3PO4 solution was about 15 nm min1 at 200 C. The Ni nanomask from an LED was removed by dipping into
HNO3 solution for 5 min after the wet-etching process. Figure 56 shows the atomic force microscopy
(AFM) image of wet-etched rough LED.
Figure 57 shows the IV characteristics of conventional and wet-etched rough LEDs. With 20-mA
injection current, the forward voltages of the conventional and nano-roughened LEDs were 3.65 and 3.5 V,
respectively. Compared with conventional LED (40
),
the dynamic resistance of nano-roughened LED (32
)
was 20% lower. Wet etching on a top nano-roughened
LED surface reduced the series resistance of the LED
due to the improvement in the ohmic contact resistance caused by the increase in the contact area.
The inset of Figure 57 shows leakage current of
these devices. The rough surface of the LED
nano-roughened by using a Ni nano-mask and
wet-etching process did not cause a larger leakage
current than that in the conventional LED.
Figure 58 shows the LI characteristics of conventional and wet-etched rough LEDs. With 20-mA
injection current, the light output powers of the
conventional and wet-etched rough LEDs were
approximately 4.5 and 6.3 mW, respectively. Wet
etching the p-GaN surface increased the output
power of the InGaNGaN MQW LEDs by a factor
of 1.4. Hence, the LED with the wet-etched rough
surface had larger light extraction efficiency.
55
6
Conventional LED
Nano-roughened LED
5
4
Voltage (V)
1.00105
Conventional LED
Nano-roughened LED
7.50106
5.00106
2.50106
0.00
2.50106
5.00106
7.50106
1.00105
20
15
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Current (mA)
10
5
Voltage (V)
70
80
90
100
Figure 57 IV characteristics of conventional and wet-etched rough light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The inset is leakage
current of these devices (Huang et al., 2005a).
25
Light output power (mW)
Conventional LED
Nano-roughened LED
20
15
10
0
0
20
40
60
Current (mA)
80
100
Figure 58 LI characteristics of conventional and wetetched rough light-emitting diodes (LEDs; Huang et al., 2005a).
6.02.4.3.3
Exterior shaping
The ATON technology for GaN on SiC-based chips
was developed by OSRAM in 2000 (Baur et al., 2002).
The ATON technology increased the light extraction efficiency from 25% for a cubical chop design to
about 55% for chips with shaped substrates. This
improvement is attributed to decline extraction
facets at the chip edges as shown in Figure 59. The
figure also shows the illustration of the reduction of
light extraction probability, with increasing distance
from the shaped substrate edge. In area 1, light cannot
be coupled into the substrate due to the difference in
the refractive indices between GaN (n 2.5) and 6HSiC (n 2.7), which cover angles up to 22.2 measured from the GaN/SiC surface; in area 2, emitting
photons are extracted from the chip, since this area
fully overlaps with the light extraction cone of the
shaped SiC surface for nearly all light-generation
positions on the chip. In area 3, emitting photons
are reflected on the vertical substrate side and cannot
be extracted on first incidence. However, the increasing of light generation from the chip edge causes the
shaped substrate area that is increasingly covered by
the dead-angle area, where no photons are coupled
into the substrate. The confirmation was performed
by ray-tracing calculations and experimental results,
where the light extraction efficiency is reduced from
55% for a 290-mm chip to 28% for a 1-mm chip,
utilizing the ATON technology.
Figure 60 shows the technique to increase
light extraction from large-area SiC-based chips.
Figure 60(a) shows the chip is mounted upside up,
which is the standard technique for GaN on SiC
chips. The light extracted in the inner chip area is
reflected on the leadframe and recoupled into the
chip. To overcome this problem, the chip is mounted
upside down, which is shown in Figure 60(b). In this
technique, the light extraction efficiencies for a
1.2-mm large-area chip (45% extraction) and standard substrate-shaped dies are almost close.
GaN/InGaN
1
1
2
3
SiC
ATON-chip
Figure 59 Light-emitting diode (LED) with decline extraction facets at the chip edges (Baur et al., 2002).
(a)
(b)
Figure 60 The chip is mounted (a) upside up (b) upside

down (Baur et al., 2002).
The optimized substrate-shaped 1-mm InGaN on

SiC chip is designed for a forward current of 350 mA.
With 350-mA injection current, the output power
and forward voltage of upside-down blue light LED
( 460 nm) are 150 mW and 3.9 V, respectively.
6.02.4.4
Wafer Bonding
Because of the small band gap of GaAs, photons

emitted downward in AlGaInP LEDs will be
absorbed by the underlying GaAs substrates. As a
result, it reduces the emission efficiency of the conventional AlGaInP-based LEDs. Although a DBR
inserted between the active region and GaAs
substrate can partially overcome this problem,
the improvement is small because only normal
incident light can be reflected by DBR structure
(Sugawara et al., 1994). The other possible solution
is to use a nonabsorbing substrate by wafer bonding
for AlGaInP LED. In addition, wafer bonding with a
high thermal conductivity substrate can overcome
the heat dissipation problem of LEDs.
6.02.4.4.1
Direct bonding
Visible-spectrum LEDs with operating wavelengths
of 560630 nm have been recently realized by
employing the (AlxGa1 x)yIn1 yP material system
(Kuo et al., 1990; Huang et al., 1992; Sugawara et al.,
1992). AlInGaP-based LEDs are usually grown on
lattice-matched GaAs substrates to achieve high
internal quantum efficiencies. However, the energy

gap of GaAs substrate is 1.424 eV, which will absorb
the light emitted by the AlInGaP-based LEDs. Thus,
the external efficiency of AlInGaP/GaAs LEDs is
limited by the absorption of GaAs substrate.
The light absorbing problem of AlInGaP/GaAs
LEDs can be improved by direct wafer bonding of
epitaxial layer to a GaP substrate and wet etching of
the GaAs substrate (Kish et al., 1994). GaP substrate does
not absorb the emission light of AlInGaP-based LEDs
because the energy band gap of GaP is 2.24 eV at room
temperature. For AlInGaP/GaAs LEDs, the external
efficiency of transparent substrate (TS) is twofold relative to that of absorbing substrate (AS) in the spectral
regime between 560 and 630 nm (Kish et al., 1994, 1996).
The wafer-bonding process of AlInGaP/GaP LEDs
by direct bonding is shown in Figure 61. The AlInGaPbased DH LEDs are first grown on GaAs substrates
by MOCVD (Kuo et al., 1990; Huang et al., 1992).
The structure of AlInGaP-based DH LEDs consists
of an 0.71.2 mm n-type lower confining layer
(x 1.0), an 1.01.5-mm undoped active layer, and
an 0.51.0-mm p-type upper confining layer (x 1.0)
with the Al composition (x) of the active region for
emission in the 560630-nm range. Subsequently, a
thick (50-mm) p-type GaP window layer is grown on
top of the structure by HVPE, which is suitable for a
low-cost growth technique of thick epitaxial layers
(Huang et al., 1992). The GaP window layer (50 mm)
not only helps for the removal of the GaAs substrate but
also serves to spread the current from the top contact.
The n-type GaAs substrate is then removed by using
conventional chemical etching techniques (Adachi and
Oe 1983). The exposed n-type layer of AlInGaP-based
DH LEDs with 50-mm GaP is directly bonded to a thick
(8 mil) n-type GaP substrate. Finally, the ohmic contacts
are formed on both GaP surfaces and 8.5 8.5 mil chips
are finished with dicing.
Figure 62 shows the photographs of AlInGaP LED
chips on GaAs and GaP substrates for the operation
current of 50 mA (direct current (DC)) with an
(b)
(c)
(d)
57
(e)
Pad
(a)
p-GaP
p-GaP
p-GaP
p-GaP
AlInGaP-based DH LEDs
GaAs substrates
GaAs substrates
n-GaP substrates
n-GaP substrates
Pad
Pad
Figure 61 Fabrication process for direct wafer bonding AlInGaP-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs.) (a) AlInGaP grown by
metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), (b) p-GaP window layer grown by vapor-phase epitaxy (VPE), (c)
removing GaAs substrate, (d) n-GaP substrate wafer bonding, and (e) LED chips are fabricated (Kish et al., 1994).
Figure 62 (a) AlInGaP light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with an

absorbing substrate (GaAs). (b) AlInGaP LEDs with a
transparent substrate (GaP) (Steigerwald et al., 2002).
emission wavelength of 600 nm (Kish et al., 1994).

For the AlGaInP LED with wafer bonding, light radiates from all surfaces of the LED chip, indicating the
uniform current flow in the device. In other words, the
GaAs substrate absorbs light for AlGaInP LED, which
is contrast to the GaP substrate.
Figure 63 shows that a twofold improvement in
light output for (b) TS LED lamps compared to (a) AS
LED lamps is realized due to the improved extraction
efficiency (Kish et al., 1994). The light output of
AlInGaP/GaP LEDs is higher than that of AlInGaP/
GaAs LEDs because GaP substrate does not absorb the
emission light from AlInGaP-based LEDs.
In the wafer-bonding process of AlInGaP/GaP
LEDs (Figure 61), a thick p-GaP window layer is
needed for handling the epitaxial layers. If the device
structure has no thick p-GaP layers, the resulting
AlInGaP DH layer becomes relatively thin after
removing the GaAs substrate. Therefore, the fabrication should be more difficult. This problem can be
solved by reversing the growth sequence of the
device structure (Chang et al., 1996). The n-GaP
substrate, serving as a window layer, is directly
bonded onto the device structure before selective
removal of the GaAs substrate (as shown in
Figure 64). An AlInGaP LED with wafer-bonded
30
12
(AlxGa1x)0.5In0.5p Light-emitting diodes

(a) Absorbing substrate
(b) (b)Transparent substrate
604.1nm
300K
25
(b)
15
(b)
3
(b)
5mA
dc
(a)
dc 5.5
20
25
50
Current (mA)
10
Power (mW)
(b)
Light output (lumen)
(a)
5
(103)
75
6.5
0
100
Figure 63 Light output vs. current (LI) curves under

direct current (dc) operation for light-emitting diode (LED)
lamps fabricated with a GaAs substrate and GaP substrate
(Kish et al., 1994).
thick n-GaP substrate offers a significant advantage

by enhancing light extraction from the edges of the
chip. GaP has the advantage of being transparent for
the entire emission wavelength region of AlInGaP
LEDs and is electrically conductive.
Therefore, the need for handling thin epitaxial
layers is avoided. The wafer-bonded GaInP/GaP
interface shows no TD and exhibits an abrupt
interface without any voids (Figure 65; Chang
et al., 1996). The method is suitable for growing
high-quality thin layers, whereas wafer bonding
provides a good approach for applying thick optically transparent and electrically conductive layers
to these structures.
The light-absorbing problem of AlInGaP/GaAs
LEDs can be solved by direct wafer bonding of epitaxial layer to a GaP substrate and removal of the
GaAs substrate. However, the heat dissipation for
GaP substrate is even worse than metals, such as Al
or Cu. For this fabrication method, therefore, it is not
suitable for the LEDs to operate under high current
injection.
(a)
(b)
N-GaP substrate
N-GaP substrate
N-GaInP bonding layer
LED structure
(c)
LED structure
LED structure
GaAs substrate
N-GaP substrate
GaAs substrate
Figure 64 The schematic structure of AlInGaP DH light-emitting diode (LED) (a) bonding and (b) removing GaAs substrate
(c) after wafer direct bonding process (Chang et al., 1996).
6.02.4.4.2
Metal bonding
Recently, AlInGaP-based LEDs with wafer-bonded
GaP TS have been demonstrated to solve the light
absorption problem resulting from GaAs substrate
(Kish et al., 1994, 1996). The luminous efficiency of
AlInGaP-based LEDs can be increased by this
method, since the light of devices cannot be absorbed
by the GaP substrate. However, the bonding process
of AlGaInP/GaP needs a high-temperature treatment, which might result in the additional
disadvantage of redistributing the doping profile.
Moreover, it is difficult to match the crystallographic
orientations of the two wafers in wafer bonding process. The crystallographic alignment can lead to the
high-power conversion efficiency of LEDs (Kish
et al., 1996). Such problems can be solved by metal
bonding technology. As shown in Figure 66, Horng
et al. (1999) reported a mirror-substrate (MS)
AlGaInP/metal/SiO2/Si LED fabricated by wafer
bonding technology. The metal layer is used as a
mirror and the light can be reflected back by the
metal. Therefore, the luminous efficiency of the
device will be increased. Moreover, the metal can
be used as the adhesive layer to bond the Si substrate
and LED epilayers. AuBe also serves as the p-type
ohmic contact for AlInGaP-based LEDs. The Si substrate improves the LED performance at high-power
operation because of the high thermal conductivity of
Si. However, both p-electrode and n-electrode are
formed on the same side, so that the chip size cannot
be decreased. Therefore, the chip size of AlInGaP/
meatal/SiO2/Si LED is larger than that of conventional AlInGaP/GaAs LED chip, which has
p-electrode on one side and n-electrode on the
other side. Thus, it is difficult to manufacture this
planar electrode type of AlInGaP LEDs with high

yield and low cost. Besides, the mirror (Au/AuBe
layers) is seriously degraded because of the Si
cross-diffusion during the bonding process.
AlGaInP/mirror/barrier/Si LEDs with vertical
electrodes were also fabricated by wafer bonding as
shown in Figure 67 (Horng et al., 2003). The vertical
type LED is more promising than AlGaInP/metal/
SiO2 /Si LED because the more efficient wafer area
will be utilized. Therefore, the throughput of LEDs
increases after chip dicing. Besides, the LED chip size
can be greatly reduced, which will help the miniaturization of package size.
The performance of the vertical AlGaInP/mirror/Si LEDs can be compared with that of the TS
AlGaInP/GaP LED (635.6 nm, 22.9%) (Hofer et al.,
1996). The performance of the vertical-type MS
LEDs does not degrade in brightness and Vf after a
2000-h stress (50 mA, 80 C), which suggests the
excellent reliability of this device.
Moreover, the metal bonding process can be
employed in bonding the epilayer of GaN-based
LEDs to metal substrate, followed by the removal
of sapphire substrate (Kelly et al., 1996; Wong et al.,
1998, 1999, 2000; Wong et al., 2001). Metal bonding
technology solves the heat dissipation problem of
GaN-based LEDs due to the poor thermal conductivity of sapphire substrate.
6.02.4.4.3
Glue bonding
As the band-gap energy of GaAs is smaller than that
of AlGaInP, photons emitted downward in AlGaInP
LEDs will be absorbed by the GaAs substrates.
Therefore, the emission efficiency will be significantly reduced for the conventional AlGaInPGaAs
59
(a)
n-GaP
substrate
AIGaAs
p-AIGaInP
i-AIGaInP
n-AIGaInP
Bonded
interface
GaAs
substrate
(b)
n-GaP
substrate
Bonded
interface
n-GaInP
n-AIGaInP
Figure 65 (a) The cleaved cross-sectional scanning electron microscope (SEM) picture for wafer-bonded light-emitting
diode (LED) structure. (b) The cross-sectional transmission electron microscope (TEM) picture of n-GaInP/GaP interface by
wafer direct bonding (Chang et al., 1996).
n-Contact
p-Contact
AlInGaP LED
Au
AuBe
SiO2
p+-Si substrate
Figure 66 A mirror-substrate (MS) AlGaInP/metal/SiO2/Si
light-emitting diode (LED) fabricated by wafer bonding
technology (Horng et al., 1999).
LEDs. By inserting a DBR structure between the

GaAs substrate and active region, it is possible to
reflect light without being absorbed by GaAs substrate. However, only normal incident light can be
efficiently reflected (Sugawara et al., 1994; Chang
et al., 1997). Another possible way to solve this problem is to use a GaP TS by wafer bonding. For this
fabrication technique, a thick p-type GaP window
layer needs to be grown on top of the AlGaInP
GaAs LED structure. The n-GaAs substrate is selectively removed, and then the exposed n-AlGaInP is
bonded to an n-GaP substrate (Kish et al., 1996;
Figure 68. The glue bonding (GB) process was performed at 300 C for 30 min. Then, the absorbing GaAs
substrates were chemically removed, and the surfaces of
the bonded samples were partially etched until the
p-GaP layers were exposed. Ohmic contacts were subsequently evaporated separately onto the n-GaInP and
p-GaP surfaces at the same side of the samples to serve
as the n- and p-electrodes, respectively, as shown in
Figure 68 (Chang et al., 2002).
The LI characteristics of the two 622-nm LEDs
are shown in Figure 69 (Chang et al., 2002). For both
samples, the EL intensity saturates under high current injection. Moreover, because of the transparent
sapphire substrate in the GB LED, the output intensity of the GB LED is much stronger than that of AS
LED. For instance, the emission efficiency of the
622-nm GB LED could reach 40 lm W1 under
20-mA current injection.
For these LEDs, the output intensity increases
and then decreases with the higher injection current.
It was also observed that the maximum output intensity for the TS and GB LEDs occurred at 115 and
130 mA, respectively. The maximum output intensity of the GB LED was 10% larger than that of the
TS LED, indicating the good optical properties of
the AlGaInPsapphire GB LED (Chang et al., 2002).
n-Contact
AlInGaP LED
Mirror layer
Si substrate
p-Contact
Figure 67 AlGaInP/mirror/barrier/Si light-emitting diodes
(LEDs) with vertical electrodes were fabricated by wafer
bonding (Horng et al., 2003).
Sheu et al., 1998; Hofler et al., 1996; Chang et al., 1996).

Compared with AS AlInGaPGaAs LED, it exhibits
a twofold improvement in light output for the TS
AlGaInPGaP LED. However, a high-temperature
(600 C) wafer bonding for a long time (1 h) is
necessary to achieve good crystallographic orientations, which can lead to the impurity redistribution
and interfacial mixing in the MQW region. Although
it is possible to use LT treatment to bond an
AlGaInP LED structure onto an AuAuBeSiOSi
MS (Horng et al., 1999), the EL intensity of such an
MS AlGaInP LED is smaller than that of TS
AlGaInP LED. Chang et al. present a method to
glue an AlGaInPGaAs LED onto a transparent sapphire substrate (Chang et al., 2002).
The spin-on-glass (SOG) method was used to coat a
transparent glue layer on top of a sapphire substrate for
wafer bonding. These two wafers were then bonded
together with a uniform uniaxial pressure as shown in
6.02.4.4.4
Flip Chip
GaN-based LEDs are typically grown on sapphire
substrates that are electrically insulating so both
p-and n-electrodes are located on the epitaxial surface (as shown in Figure 70). Thus, top-emitting
power and conventional GaN-based LEDs are limited in light extraction due to the absorption of
the metal electrodes. The light-absorbing regions
include the n- and p-electrodes, and wire bonds to
the package. Besides, it is also required for current
(a)
Sapphire
substrate
Glue layer
(b)
(d)
Sapphire
substrate
Glue layer
LED
LED
GaAs
substrate
GaAs
substrate
LED
(c)
Sapphire
substrate
(e)
LED
Glue layer
Glue layer
Sapphire
substrate
Sapphire
substrate
Glue layer
LED
Figure 68 Fabrication procedure of AlGaInPsapphire GB light-emitting diodes (LEDs): (a) sample preparation, (b) glue
bonding, (c)GaAs removing, (d) mesa etching, and (e) n- and p-electrodes (Chang et al., 2002).
EL intensity (a.u.)
2500
TS 590 nm yellow LED

GB 590 nm yellow LED
2000
61
Sapphire
substrate
N-GaN
1500
MQW
1000
N-electrodes
P-GaN
P-electrodes
AS 622 nm red LED

GB 622 nm red LED
500
0
25
50
75
100
Current (mA)
125
150
Figure 69 LI characteristics of 622-nm AlGaInP lightemitting diodes (LEDs) with sapphire and conventional
GaAs substrates (Chang et al., 2002).
Solder
Solder
Si submount
Figure 71 The schematic cross-sectional view of the

GaN-based flip-chip light-emitting diode (FCLED). The
p-electrode is reflective and redirects light up through the
sapphire (Wierer et al., 2001).
P-pad
P-GaN
MQW
N-pad
N-GaN
Sapphire
substrate
Figure 70 Conventional GaN-based light-emitting diodes
(LEDs) typically grown on sapphire substrates.
spreading in spite of the low-conductivity p-GaN.

Ideally, the transparent contact layer (TCL) of
p-GaN should be thick to spread the current; however, in practice, it must be thin to minimize light
absorption. A flip-chip structure is employed in
order to enhance the light extraction from the highpower GaN-based LEDs (1 1 mm2). The highpower GaN-based flip-chip LEDs (FCLEDs) with
improved efficiencies over the standard top-emitting
LEDs have been investigated (Wierer et al., 2001). In
the FCLED design by Wierer et al., the LED chip is
inverted compared to the top-emitting GaN-based
LED. Therefore, all the light is extracted through
the transparent sapphire substrate, avoiding absorption from the n- and p-electrodes, and TCL. These
power FCLEDs employ a thick reflective p-type
metal layer that provides improved current spreading
and lower forward voltages. The metal layer is located
on the bottom, so downward propagating light is
redirected up through the sapphire, increasing light
extraction. The FCLEDs exhibit high external quantum efficiencies and wall-plug efficiencies (21% and
20%, respectively, at 200 mA) and record light output

powers of 400 mW at 1.0 A and 435 nm (Wierer et al.,
2001).
Figure 71 shows a schematic cross-sectional view
of the FCLED, and the chip dimensions are
1 1 mm2. The FCLED is flip chip soldered to a
submount via the interconnecting metallization.
Electrical connections are made to the FCLED via
the submount. The FCLED is then placed in a highpower package (Hofler et al., 1998), allowing highcurrent and high-temperature operation. There are
many advantages to the FCLED design. Light now
exits through a TS instead of an absorbing TCL as for
the case of top-emitting GaN-based LEDs. Moreover,
downward propagating light is reflected up, increasing
the light extraction (arrow in Figure 71; Wierer et al.,
2001). Another benefit is that the heat generated in the
LED flows directly from the pn junction out through
the Si submount. This avoids heat dissipation through
the thermally resistive sapphire substrate as required
in standard top-emitting LEDs. Finally, current
spreading on the p side of the device is handled by a
thick p-electrode, instead of the standard thin TCL,
reducing spreading resistance.
Figure 72 shows the higher brightness of the
FCLED compared to the top-emitting and conventional small-size LEDs. The FCLEDs are 1.6 times
greater in extraction efficiency compared to topemitting LEDs (Wierer et al., 2001). Besides, the output powers of the top-emitting and conventional
LED at high-power operation are limited by the
heat dissipation problem. Therefore, the FCLEDs
can be stably operated at 1 A. The result indicates
that the flip chip is a viable technique for GaN-based
6.02.5 Metal Contact
70
AIGalnN blue-green LEDs
Wavelength ~515nm
300K dc
60
Flux (lm)
50
Power FCLED
Conventional LED
Top-emitting power LED
40
30
20
10
0
0
200
400
600
800
1000
Current (mA)
Figure 72 Flux (lm) vs. current (mA) for a conventional

LED, top-emitting power LED, and a power flip-chip lightemitting diode (FCLED) operated with dc drive currents
(Wierer et al., 2001).
N-GaN
MQW
P-GaN
Cathode
Anode
Cathode
Ceramic substrate
Figure 73 Schematic cross-sectional representation of

the structure of InGaN/GaN thin-film flip-chip light-emitting
diode (LED). Same-sided anode and cathode are shown
connected with gold interconnects to the ceramic
submount (Shchekin et al., 2006).
LEDs for which high brightness and high power are

necessary (Tadatomo et al., 2001a, 2001b; Chitnis
et al., 2002; Koike et al., 2002; Song et al., 2004;
Chang et al., 2005).
In recent years, the further improvement of
FCLEDs is reported by Shchekin et al. They presented the thin-film flip-chip LED (TFFC LED;
Figure 73) that combines conventional flip-chip
and vertical-injection thin-film techniques in order
to enhance the brightness of FCLEDs (Shchekin et al.,
2006). The TFFC LEDs (441 nm) are demonstrated with radiance of 191 mW mm2 sr1 at 1 A
drive, more than 2 times brighter than conventional
FCLEDs. Moreover, an encapsulated TFFC LED
lamp is presented to have external quantum efficiency of 38% at forward current of 350 mA
(Shchekin et al., 2006).
In recent years, GaN-based semiconductors have

attracted much attention due to their application in
the area of optoelectronic devices, such as LEDs
(Nakamura et al., 1994) and LDs (Nakamura et al.,
1997), in the green to violet light region. They are
also potentially useful in electronic devices operating
at high temperatures above 300 C due to their
superior physical properties, such as wide direct
band gap, high electrical, and high thermal conductivity (Khan et al., 1995; Aktas et al., 1996). However,
poor ohmic contact is the major problem limiting
LEDs performance between metal/semiconductor
interfaces. In order to improve the characteristic of
LEDs, stable ohmic contacts on both n- and p-GaN
layers are required with less contact resistance. After
p-GaN deposition during MOCVD growth, the
resistivity of as-grown p-GaN layers was as high as
1 106
cm, resulting in a high ohmic contact at
metal electrode/p-GaN interface (Nakamura et al.,
1992). Because of the low Mg ionization percentage,
it will result in a highly resistive p-GaN layer and a
large contact resistance in metal/semiconductor
interface. The formation of MgH complexes during
MOCVD growth has usually been proposed to be
responsible for the high resistivity of p-GaN. After
p-GaN growth, low-energy e-beam irradiation
(LEEBI; Amano et al., 1989), thermal annealing
(Nakamura et al., 1992), and microwave (Chang
et al., 2001) are utilized for Mg activation to obtain a
p-type GaN. On the other hand, GaN material owns
a large band gap of 3.4 eV to lead to a poor ohmic
contact. Conventional GaN-based LEDs use semitransparent Ni/Au on top of p-GaN as the p-type
conductive layer, and Ti/Al on exposed n-GaN as
the n-type conductive layer, respectively (Nakamura
et al., 1994; Qiao et al., 2000). Several studies about
ohmic contact on n- and p-type GaN films deposited
with other methods have been demonstrated. These
methods are discussed in detail subsequently.
6.02.5.1
Ohmic Contact
A number of metallizations have been investigated

for contacts on p-GaN such as Ni/Au, indium zinc
oxide (IZO; Phillips et al., 1995; Uang et al., 2005;
Wang et al., 2006), indium tin oxide (ITO;
Margalith et al., 1999; Horng et al., 2001), nickel
oxide (NiO; Ho et al., 1999; Koide et al., 1999), and
zinc oxide (ZnO; Song et al., 2003). The usually
0.08
500 C alloyed
0.06
700 C alloyed
as-deposited
Current (mA)
0.04
0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
15
10
0 5 10 15
5
Voltage (V)
Figure 74 The IV curves of Ni/Au contacts on p-type

GaN films alloyed at various temperatures for 10 min
(Sheu et al., 1998).
adopted ohmic contact to p-GaN is a semitransparent Ni/Au bilayer thin film, which is prepared by ebeam evaporation and thermal alloying to obtain
ohmic contact with p-GaN. Figure 74 shows the
IV characteristics of Ni/Au contacts on p-GaN
layers including various alloying temperatures
(Sheu et al., 1998). The samples were alloyed at
temperatures of 500 and 700 C for 10 min. Only
the 700 C alloyed sample exhibits linear IV characteristic. The other samples do not show a linear IV
characteristic. In spite of the IV curve of the 500 C
alloyed sample not being linear, the ohmic contact
can be achieved through the higher alloying temperature. The improvement of ohmic contact may
be attributed to the interfacial reactions taking place
among the Ni, Au, and GaN and their alloys extending into the GaN layer. Figure 75 shows the depth
(a)
(b)
5000
63
profiles of Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) for the

alloyed Ni/Au contacts on p-GaN (Sheu et al., 1998).
We can find that the Ni is diffused into the GaN
layer for samples where the alloying temperature is
above 500 C and reacted with the GaN layer at
the interface vicinity, as shown in Figures 75(b)
and 75(c). To identify the interfacial reactants, the
measurements of X-ray diffraction (XRD) were
performed.
Figure 76 shows the XRD spectra of as-deposited
and alloyed Ni/Au bilayer on p-GaN (Sheu et al.,
1998). According to Figures 76(a) and 76(b), it can
be observed that a small peak at 98.45 is detected to
be (222) Ni for the as-deposited and 500 C alloyed
samples. However, this small peak of (222) Ni is
missing as the samples alloyed temperatures up to
600 and 700 C, as shown in Figures 76(c) and 76(d),
respectively. In addition, the peaks of (0002) Ni3N (at
40 ), (400) Ga4Ni3 (at 31.5 ), and (800) Ga4Ni3, (20
22) Ga3Ni2 (at 65 ) for all alloyed samples are not
detectable in as-deposited samples. This indicates
that the Ni layer is depleted during higher alloying
temperatures, thereby forming new Ni-containing
compounds with other atoms. As the sample annealed
above 600 C, the characteristic peaks of (440)
Ga4Ni3 is not detectable, as shown in Figures 76(c)
and 76(d). These results may imply that the higher
alloying temperature results in the (440) Ga4Ni3
phases to disorder. As shown in Figures 76(b) and
76(c), the peak of Ni and the peaks of Ni containing
compounds, such as the characteristic peaks of (160)
GaAu or (531) AuGa2 (at 96.9 ) and (431) GaAu or
(805) AuGa2 (at 80.4 ), are also detected by XRD as
the sample alloyed at 500 and 600 C. However, these
peaks are almost missing as the sample alloyed
(c)
5000
5000
Au
Ga
3000
2000
N
1000
4000
Au
3000
Ga
2000
Intensity (a.u)
4000
Intensity (a.u)
Intensity (a.u)
4000
Sputter time (s)
Ga
2000
Ni
1000
Ni
N
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Au
3000
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400

Sputter time (s)
1000
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Sputter time (s)
Figure 75 The Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) depth profiles of Ni/Au contacts on p-type GaN films alloyed at various
temperatures for 10 min. (a) 500 C, (b) 600 C, and (c) 700 C. (Sheu et al., 1998)
(c)
500
0
30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
(844)Ga4Ni3, (2132)Ga3Ni2
(0004)Ni3N
1500
(1120) Ni3N
40
50
60
(0004) Ni3N
(0004)GaN
(800)Ga4Ni3, (0002)Ga3Ni2
(0002)Ni3N
500
0
30
0
30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
(400)Ga4Ni3
1000
(204)GaAu2
Intensity (a.u)
(0002) GaN
(0002)Ni
(160)GaAu, (531)AuGa2
(431)GaAu, GaAu
(0004)GaN
(800)Ga4Ni3, (2022)Ga3Ni2
500
(440)Ga4Ni3
1000
(844)Ga4Ni3, (2132)Ga3Ni2
1500
(400)Ga4Ni3
(0002)GaN
Intensity (a.u)
2-Theta (degree)
(d)
(1120) Ni3N
(0002) Ni3N
(0004)GaN
0
30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
2-Theta (degree)
(b)
(0004)Ni3N
(400)Ga4Ni3
1000
(160)GaAu, (531)AuGa2
(0002)Ni3N
(0002)GaN
(844)Ga4Ni3, (2132)Ga3Ni2
(1120)Ni3N
(431)GaAU, (805)GaAu2
1500
Intensity (a.u)
(0004) Ni3N
(844)Ga4Ni3(2132)Ga3Ni2
(222)Ni
(0004) GaN
500
(440) Ga4Ni3 (1120) Ni N

3
1000
(0002) GaN
Intensity (a.u)
1500
(800)Ga4Ni3, (2022)Ga3Ni2
(a)
70
80
90
100 110
2-Theta (degree)
2-Theta (degree)
Figure 76 The X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra of Ni/Au contacts on p-type GaN films alloyed at various temperatures for
10 min, (a) as-deposited, (b) 500 C, (c) 600 C, and (d) 700 C (Sheu et al., 1998).
Energy (MeV)
150
Normalized yield
temperatures up to 700 C. The new compound products are created due to Ni/Au reaction with GaN.
These compound products between the metal and
semiconductor interface can substantially affect the
electrical properties of contacts, thereby resulting in
an ohmic contact.
Improved ohmic contacts using Ti/Al deposited
on n-GaN with low-resistivity contact have been
established by Lin et al. (1994) and Fan et al. (1996).
Other materials such as ITO, Ti/ITO, and Ti/Ag
have been reported for n-GaN ohmic contact (Guo
et al., 1996; Sheu et al., 1999; Hwang et al., 2006). Ti/Al
bilayer contacts have become the common materials
for n-GaN ohmic contact among these materials.
Figure 77 shows the Rutherford backscattering
spectrometry (RBS) spectra of the nonalloyed and
alloyed Ti/Al contacts on n-GaN. It can be observed
1.5
1.0
2.0
Al
100
Ti
nonalloyed
theoritical
50
0
200
300 C-alloyed
400
600
800
1000
Channel
Figure 77 Rutherford back-scattered (RBS) spectra of Ti/

Al contacts on n-GaN films of nonalloyed, 500 C-alloyed,
and calculated, respectively (Sheu et al., 2000).
(a)
(b) 1010
1010
106
Secondary ion counts
Secondary ion counts
Ga
108
Al
N
104
Ti
Ga
108
106
Al
N
104
Ti
100
100
65
1
0
200
400
600
800
Sputtering time (s)
1000
1200
200
400
600
800
Sputtering time (s)
1000
1200
Figure 78 SIMS depth profiles of Ti/Al contact on n-GaN (a) as-deposited and (b) 500 C-alloyed for 5 min (Sheu et al., 2000).
that the widths of Ti/Al become broadened after

alloying in N2 ambient at 500 C for 5 min than that
of Ti/Al before alloying (Sheu et al., 2000). It can also
be observed that the intensities of Ti/Al are
decreased after alloying at the same time. This
could be attributed to the Ti and Al reaction with
GaN at the interface after alloying. Figure 78 shows
the secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) of asdeposited and alloyed Ti/Al bilayer on n-GaN
(Sheu et al., 2000). It shows that the Ti and Al layers
were completely diffused into GaN after thermal
alloying in a N2 ambient at 500 C for 5 min.
According to the depth profiles of SIMS, it was
proposed that ohmic contact can be achieved after
Ti and Al diffusing into the GaN interface.
6.02.5.2
SPS Contact Layer
To reduce contact resistance, another method has

demonstrated GaN-based LEDs combined with an
n-InGaN/GaN SPS tunneling contact layer which
have low operating voltage (Sheu, 2001a; Chang et al.,
2003a). The schematic diagram of the LEDs with the
Si-doped InGaN/GaN SPS contact layer is shown in
Figure 79. The SPS was deposited on the top of pGaN layer, which consists of a four-pair Si-doped
n-In0.23Ga0.77N/GaN (5 A/5 A) SPS structure. By
growing such an SPS structure, linear ohmic contact
could be achieved through tunneling when the nInGaN/GaN-pGaN junction was properly reverse
biased. Figures 80(a) and 80(b) show energy band
diagrams of metal/SPS/p-GaN and metal/p-GaN,
respectively. It indicates that carriers could be injected
easily from metal into p-GaN for SPS structure, as
p-electrode
Ti/Au
SiO2 passivaton layer

Ni/Au semi-transparent
layer
4 pairs of Si: InGaN/GaN
short-period superlattices
Mg:GaN
Mg:AlGaN
n-electrode
Ti/Al/Ti/Au
InGan/GaN MQW
Si:GaN
Nucleation layer
Sapphire
Figure 79 Schematic diagram of InGaN/GaN LEDs with
the Si-doped InGaN/GaN short-period superlattice (SPS)
contact layer (Liu et al., 2003).
shown in Figure 80(a). Without the SPS, carriers

could only enter p-GaN through the thermal emission
process (Liu et al., 2003). Figure 81 shows IV characteristics of Ni/Au and ITO contacts on p-GaN, nSPS, and n-SPS (Chang et al., 2003a). Note that the
sheet carrier concentrations were 3.22 1014 cm2,
7.34 1015 cm2, and 3.51 1013 cm2 for n-SPS,
n-SPS, and p-GAN, respectively. Only the ITO
without SPS did not lead to linear IV characteristic.
However, other samples could achieve a much more
linear IV characteristic compared to ITO without
SPS. Furthermore, it was further found that the
specific contact resistance of 1.03 103
cm2 of
ITO on n-SPS was smaller than that of ITO on
n-SPS. The improvement of ohmic contact may be
attributed to the larger tunneling probability when
ITO was deposited on n-SPS.
(a)
(b)
Metal
Sps
p-GaN
CB
p-GaN
Metal
CB
EF
VB
EF
VB
Tunneling process
Thermal emission process
Figure 80 Energy band diagrams of (a) metal/SPS/p-GaN and (b) metal/p-GaN (Liu et al., 2003).
0.10
p-electrode
Ti/Au
u
0.08
Ni/Au semi-transparent
layer
Current (mA)
0.06
0.04
0.02
Mg:Gan
0.00
ITO without SPS
ITO n+ -SPS
Ni/Au n+ -SPS
ITO n++ -SPS
Ni/Au n++ -SPS
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Voltage (V)
Figure 81 IV characteristics of Ni/Au and ITO contacts
on p-GaN, n-SPS an n-SPS (Chang et al., 2003).
Mg:AlGan
Mg:InGaN
tunneling contact layer
n-electro
ode
Ti/Al/Ti/A
Au
InGan/GaN MQW
Si:Gan
Nucleation layer
Sapphire
Tunneling Contact Layer
Figure 82 Schematic structure of the In0.05Ga0.95N/

Al0.08Ga0.92N multiple quantum-well (MQW) light-emitting
diodes (LEDs) with p-In0.23Ga0.77N tunneling contact layer
(Chen et al., 2004).
In order to reduce p-contact resistance, the other

methods are demonstrated, that is, p-type InGaN as
the tunneling contact layer (Kumakura et al., 2000;
Gessmann et al., 2002). Kumakura et al. had reported
that the hole concentration of p-type InGaN was
achieved above 1018 cm3 at room temperature. It
has been shown that one could achieve linear IV
characteristic by depositing a p-InGaN tunneling contact layer on top of the p-GaN. The strain-induced
piezoelectric field as well as spontaneous polarization
field at the p-InGaN/p-GaN interface could result in
a significant amount of energy band bending that leads
to the generation of a two-dimensional hole gas
(2DHG). The ohmic contact could be obtained by
using this structure (Gessmann et al., 2002). The
LED structure with p-InGaN tunneling contact consists of a 25-nm-thick LT GaN nucleation layer, a
1-mm-thick undoped GaN epilayer, and a 2-mm-thick
Si-doped GaN epilayer, a five-period Si-doped
InGaN/AlGaN MQW active layer, a 0.1-mm-thick

Mg-doped AlGaN cladding layer, a 0.3-mm-thick
Mg-doped GaN layer, and, finally, a p-In0.23Ga0.77N
tunneling contact layer. Figure 82 shows the schematic structure of the In0.05Ga0.95N/Al0.08Ga0.92N
MQW LEDs with a p-InGaN tunneling contact
layer (Chen et al., 2004). The IV characteristics of
the fabricated LEDs with and without p-InGaN tunneling layer are shown in Figure 83. It can be found
clearly that the forward voltage was higher for the
LED without p-InGaN tunneling layer, as compared
to the LED with a p-InGaN tunneling contact layer.
Under a 20-mA forward current injection, the operation voltages were 3.78 V and 3.37 V for the LED
without and with a 5-nm-thick p-InGaN tunneling
contact layer, respectively. Compared with LED without p-InGaN tunneling contact layer, a smaller
forward voltage observed from LED with p-InGaN
6.02.5.3
UVLED I without Mg:InGan layer

UVLED II with 5nm Mg:InGan layer
Current (mA)
60
40
LED IV characteristic
20
67
Figure 85. It can be seen that the forward voltages

were 3.8 and 3.0 V at 20 mA for LED without and with
SLSs, respectively. On the other hand, the dynamic
resistance was about 40 and 18
for LED without and
with SLSs, respectively. These results indicate that the
high hole concentration can be achieved, in which the
high activation efficiency is due to the strain-induced
piezoelectric field.
6.02.6 ESD Protection Issue

0
Voltage (V)
Figure 83 IV characteristics of ultraviolet light-emitting
diode (UV-LED) with and without p-In0.23Ga0.77N tunneling
contact layer (Chen et al., 2004).
tunneling contact layer could be attributed to the

smaller p-contact resistance.
Another tunneling contact configuration is
strained-layer superlattices (SLSs) through Mgdoped AlGaN/GaN (Kozodoy et al., 1999; Kumakura
and Kobayashi, 1999). The Hall effect measurement at
room temperature revealed that these SLS structures
have a carrier concentration of above 2.5 1018 cm3.
Figure 84 shows the schematic structure of the
InGaN/GaN LEDs, which consists of a 10-pair
Mg-doped Al0.15Ga0.85N/GaN (16 nm/8 nm) SLSs
(Sheu et al., 2001). According to the SLS structure of
Figure 84, the hole concentration and mobility are
about 3 1018 cm3 and 5 cm2 V1 s1, respectively.
The IV and dynamic resistance characteristics of the
fabricated LEDs with and without SLSs are shown in
p-electrode
Ti/Au
Ni/Au transparent contact
Mg:Al0.15Ga0.85N/GaN
superlattices
Mg:GaN
n-electrode
Ti/Al/Ti/Au
InGaN/GaN MQW
The ESD events occur to balance the charge between

two objects. The event starts by a charge generation,
creating an imbalance of voltage between two objects.
Then, the charge is transferred to reach the potential
equivalent between two objects. GaN-based LEDs
were generally grown on sapphire substrate. This
kind of substrate is a nonconductive material and
the ESD will in turn be affected. In this section, we
introduce the method to reduce the effect of ESD
with proper design of devices.
There are three models to describe the charge
transfer: the human body mode (HBM), machine
mode (MM), and charged device mode (CDM).
The HBM is designed to model the ESD event
coming from a person touching a device. The MM
is intended to represent the type of damage caused by
equipment used in manufacturing (Roozendaal et al.,
1990). The CDM is intended to simulate the event
that occurs from the device subsequently discharging
into a low impedance ground (Olney, 1996). The
MM is the worst case, because of its zero series
resistance and the larger capacitor. If the LED can
reach 100 V in MM, then, it can reach 1000 V in
HBM. Figure 86 shows the schematic diagram of the
HBM and the MM (Vinson and Liou, 1998).
The ways to overcome the effect of ESD for
fabricated device can briefly be separated into two
parts. First, it can be improved by a parallel protection device such as a Schottky diode in general.
Second, the design in epitaxial structure would also
provide a way to improve it. These are discussed in
the following.
Si:GaN
Nucleation layer
Sapphire
Figure 84 Schematic structure of the InGaN/GaN lightemitting diode (LED) with Al0.15Ga0.85N/GaN strained-layer
superlattices (SLSs; Sheu et al., 2001).
6.02.6.1
Parallel Protection Device
6.02.6.1.1
GaN LEDs with Si Zener diodes

To solve the ESD problems in GaN-based LEDs, it
has been shown that the GaN LEDs can be electrically connected to Si Zener diodes through the flipchip process (Inoue, 1999). With this structure, the
30
140
25
100
Current (mA)
20
80
15
60
LED I(without SLs)
LED II(with SLs)
10
40
Dynamic resistance ()
120
20
Forward voltage (Volt)

Figure 85 Forward IV and dynamic resistance characteristics of the InGaN/GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs; Sheu et al., 2001).
Charging
resistor
High-voltage
supply
Charging
resistor
1.5k ohms
DUT
100pF
Parasitic
elements
High-voltage
supply
750nH
DUT
200pF
Parasitic
elements
Figure 86 The schematic diagram of the (a) the human body mode (HBM) and (b) the machine maode (MM; Vinson and
Liou, 1998).
current could flow across the GaN LED inside under

normal forward-bias operation. On the other hand, a
reverse-biased ESD-induced electrical pulse current
could flow across the Si Zener diodes through the
flip-chip process.
6.02.6.1.2 Improved ESD protection

of GaN LEDs with internal ESD protection
diodes
Chang et al.(2003) published that one can improve

ESD protection by combining InGaN/GaN MQW
LEDs with GaN Schottky diodes. The circuit model
of LED with Schottky diode is plotted in Figure 87.
Under normal forward-bias operation, current could
flow across the GaN LED from PL to NL. On the
other hand, if a reverse-biased ESD-induced electrical pulse originated from the skin of human body
occurs, ESD current could flow across the GaN
Schottky diode from PS to NS. Thus, such a design
could effectively protect the GaN LEDs from electrical stress damage.
Figure 88 shows the ESD properties of normal
GaN LED and GaN LED with Schottky diode. The
output power starts to decrease and the reverse current starts to increase when the ESD amplitude
equals 450 V for the normal GaN LED. On the
other hand, the output power and reverse current
remain the same for the GaN LED with Schottky
diode until the ESD amplitude reaches 1300 V. In
other words, the insertion of the internal Schottky
diode can increase the ESD threshold from 450 to
1300 V, which also suggests that such a design is
potentially useful in providing us a reliable nitridebased LED without the use of flip-chip process.
The ESD characteristics of GaN LED were also
improved with design. Chang et al. also discussed the
influence in the pattern layout design of GaN LED.
Figure 89 showed the top views of the conventional
LED (i.e., LED-I) without the ESD protection diode
PL
69
Current
Ni/Au TCL
p-GaN
p-AlGaN
PL
NL
InGaN/GaN
MQW
n-GaN
NS
LED
NL
Undoped GaN
NS
PS
PS
Nucleation layer
Sapphire
Ti/Al
SiO2
Pt/Au
Figure 87 The schematic structure and equivalent circuit model of the GaN light-emitting diode (LED) with an internal
Schottky diode (Chang et al.).
100
101
102
103
1104
LED
LED with
GaN diode
106
107
LED
LED with
GaN diode
1105
500
1000
Current at 2V (A)
Output power at 60 mA (mW)
108
109
1500
1010
ESD amplitude (V)

Figure 88 The output power and the reverse-bias dark current as functions of electrostatic discharge (ESD) pulse
amplitude (Chang et al.)
Table 1 The dimension of chip and slave ESD protection
diode (Chang S. J. et al.)
LED-I
LED-II
LED-III
Chip
dimension
(mm2)
Slave ESD protection diode

dimension (mm2)
120 000
125 400
120 000
120 000
0
4200
10 800
11 500
LED-IV
Figure 89 Top views of the light-emitting diodes (LEDs)

with different layout design (Chang et al.).
and the LEDs with ESD protection diodes (i.e., LEDII, LED-III, and LED-IV) fabricated with three different sets of layouts. Table 1 lists the information
on the dimensions of the chip and the slave ESD
protection diodes for the four fabricated LEDs.
Furthermore, it was found that the operation voltage
and ESD characteristics of the fabricated LEDs
LED-I
LED-II
LED-III
LED-IV
depend on the dimension of the internal diode as

well as on the pattern layout design. The lifetime of
the proposed LEDs can also be benefited from the
proper pattern layout design in order to enhance the
current spreading.
6.02.6.2
6.02.6.1.3 GaN power LED with

complementary metal-oxide
semiconductor ESD protection circuits
The GaN power LED with complementary metaloxide semiconductor (CMOS) protection circuits
through a flip-chip process had also been published
(Horng et al., 2007). Figure 90 showed the structure of
this design. It was found that we could enhance the
power LED output intensity by 20% by using the flipchip technology. Lifetimes of flip-chip power LEDs
were also found to be better. Besides, the experiment
results also indicated that one could not only significantly enhance the reverse ESD characteristics but also
enhance the positive ESD characteristics of nitridebased LEDs by using the CMOS ESD protection
circuits.
Epitaxial Structure
6.02.6.2.1 GaN-based LEDs with multiple

GaN/SiN nucleation layers
It is well known that GaN-based LEDs have a large

mismatch in lattice constants between GaN epitaxial
layers and the underlying sapphire substrates, which
will result in a poor epitaxial layer quality. One
possible way to enhance lateral growth and thus
improve the crystal quality of nitride-based LEDs is
to use multiple GaN/SiN nucleation layers. Related
paper was reported by Wei et al. (2005). Figure 91
shows LI characteristics of the LEDs with different
buffer layers. The EL intensities observed from the
blue LEDs with and without the multiple GaN/SiN
nucleation layers were almost identical. The EL
Light emitting
(a)
Sapphire
n-GaN
MQW
p-GaN
Transparent ohmic layer

Reflective mirror
Passivation
N-bump
Via hole
P-bump
Passivation
Via hole
Metal layer 1~3
SiO2
Si p-substrate
(b)
Figure 90 (a) The schematic structure and (b) top view of power light-emitting diode (LED) module (Horng et al.).
EL Intensity (a. u.)
GaN buffer, 470 nm

GaN/SiN (10) buffer, 470 nm
GaN/SiN (10) buffer, 410 nm
GaN buffer, 410 nm
10
10
50
100
150
200
250
Current (mA)
Figure 91 LI characteristics of the light-emitting diodes

(LEDs) emitting in near-UV and blue regions (Wei et al.).
intensity of the n-UV LED with 10-pair GaN/SiN

nucleation layers was much larger than that of the
conventional one. Figure 92 shows life test in terms
of changes in relative EL intensity measured from
these two LEDs. According to the life test, one can
significantly enhance the lifetime and the corresponding ESD characteristics of GaN-based LEDs
by using the multiple GaN/SiN nucleation layers
due to the lower dislocation density.
6.02.6.2.2 Nitride-based LEDs with n-GaN

current spreading layers
Change in relative intensity (%)
The GaN-based LEDs grown on sapphire substrate

have current transport along the lateral direction due
to the insulating nature of the substrate. In addition,
the finite resistance of the n-type GaN buffer layer
causes the pn junction current to be nonuniform
and crowds near the edge of the contact. Su et al.
introduced that insert a low carrier concentration
n-GaN layer for current spreading to reduce current crowding effect.
0
5
10
15
20
25
GaN/SiN (x10) buffer

GaN buffer
0
25
50
75
Time (h)
Figure 92 Life test of relative electroluminescence (EL)

intensity of LEDI and LEDII, normalized to their respective
initial readings (Wei et al.).
71
Figure 93 shows IV characteristics of these three

LEDs. It can be seen clearly that 20-mA forward
voltage of LEDII was much larger than those
observed from LEDI and LEDIII. Similar results
were obtained from LEDs with large chip sizes.
This is due to the extremely high series resistance
of the u-GaN layer. As a result, the operation voltage
in the vertical direction will become much larger.
Although series resistance of n-GaN layer was
higher than that of n-GaN layer, good current
spreading of n-GaN layer should significantly
reduce the current crowding effect. Thus, 20-mA
forward voltage of LEDI was only slightly higher
than that of conventional LEDIII.
Figure 94 shows measured LI characteristics of
the three LEDs. It can be seen that one could indeed
enhance LED output intensity by inserting the current spreading layer. ESD characteristics of these
samples were also measured. It was found that conventional LEDIII without current spreading layer
could only endure negative 2500-V ESD pulses. On
the other hand, LEDI and LEDII could both endure
ESD pulses as high as negative 4000 V. The much
better ESD characteristics of LEDI and LEDII could
again be attributed to better current spreading.
Figure 95(a) shows a photograph of the ESDdamaged LEDIII after we applied negative 3000-V
ESD pulses. In contrast, a whole dead area instead of
spots was observed from LEDI, as shown in
Figure 95(b). Such an observation also indicates
that the 0.1-mm-thick n-GaN current spreading
layer could indeed spread the carriers effectively.
6.02.6.2.3
LEDs
Nitride-based dual-stage MQW
To achieve high efficient LEDs, one needs to

enhance carrier recombination probability in the
MQW active region of the devices, since carriers
not captured and/or confined inside the well layers
of the MQW will be wasted and become leakage
current. Nitride-based LED with dual-stage MQW
structure is proposed and fabricated (Wei et al., 2007).
It was also found that we could achieve smaller
reverse leakage current and forward operation voltage from the dual-stage MQW LEDs. Furthermore,
it was found that ESD characteristics of the dualstage MQW LED are also better.
Figure 96 shows measured LI characteristics of the
two fabricated LEDs. It was found that EL intensity
observed from dual-stage MQW LED was always larger
than that of conventional single-stage MQW LED. The
0.08
no current spreading layer
with n-GaN current
spreading layer
with u-GaN current
spreading layer
Current (A)
0.06
0.04
0.02
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
Voltage (V)
Relative luminous intensity (a.u.)
Figure 93 IV characteristics of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with 0.1-mm-thick n-GaN, 0.1-mm-thick u-GaN current
spreading layer and conventional LED (Su et al.).
no current spreading layer

with n-GaN current
spreading layer
with u-GaN current
spreading layer
20
40
60
80
100

Figure 94 LI characteristics of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with 0.1-mm-thick n-GaN, 0.1-mm-thick u-GaN current
spreading layer and conventional LED (Su et al.).
(a)
(b)
Figure 95 Photographs of the electrostatic discharge (ESD)-damaged (a) conventional LED and (b) light-emitting diode
(LED) with 0.1-mm-thick n-GaN current spreading layer (Su et al.).
enhanced EL intensity observed from dual-stage LED

could be attributed to the improved crystal quality.
Figures 97(a) and 97(b) show measured ESD
results of the conventional single-stage MQW LED
and the dual-stage MQW LED proposed in this
study, respectively. The much larger endurable

ESD voltage and the observation of dead area should
be attributed to the improved crystal quality of the
dual-stage LED. When an electrical pulse is imposed
onto the dual-stage LEDs, current will spread easily
Dual-stage MQW
EL intensity (a.u.)
20
Output power (mW)
73
15
10
Dual-stage MQW
Single-stage MQW
400 450 500 550 600

Wavelength (nm)
20
40
60
80
100

Figure 96 LI characteristics of the fabricated dual-stage multiple quantum-well (MQW) light-emitting diode (LED) and
conventional single-stage MQW LED. The inset shows room-temperature electroluminescence (EL) spectrum of the dualstage MQW LED under 20-mA current injections (Wei et al.).
(a)
(b)
Figure 97 Measured electrostatic discharge (ESD) results of (a) the conventional single-stage multiple quantum-well (MQW)
light-emitting diode (LED) and (b) the dual-stage MQW LED. The chips shown in the left side of (a) and the left side of (b) were
without ESD damaging. The chips shown in the right side of figure (a) and the right side of (b) were ESD-damaged chips (Wei et al.).
in the lateral directions. Thus, one can minimize the

possibility of junction suffering a high current and
improve ESD performance of the devices.
6.02.6.2.4 Growth methods of the p-GaN
in GaN-based LEDs
Since p-GaN layers were grown on top of the

InGaN/GaN MQW active regions, high-temperature-grown p-GaN layers might result in degraded
optical and structural properties of the LEDs.
However, crystal quality of the top p-GaN layers
grown at high temperatures should be better, which
might result in improved ESD characteristics of the
nitride-based LEDs. Su et al. fabricated GaN-based
LEDs with p-cap layers grown at various temperatures. It was found that there exist a large number of
V-shaped defects in LEDs with 900 C-grown p-cap
layers. These V-shaped defects will result in a
degraded ESD performance. It was also found that
we could significantly improve the ESD characteristics of GaN-based LEDs by raising the p-cap growth
temperature.
Figure 98 shows measured ESD results for the

processed LEDs with p-cap layers grown at various
temperatures. It can be clearly seen that all LEDs
used in this study could endure positive ESD voltage
higher than positive 7000 V, since current could flow
across the pn junction easily. On the other hand,
negative ESD characteristics of the LEDs are much
poorer. With this method, one can significantly
enhance the ESD characteristics of GaN-based
LEDs by simply increasing the growth temperature
of p-GaN cap layers.
Both Figures 99(a) and 99(b) show photographs
of the ESD-damaged LEDs with 900 C-grown p-cap
layers. It can be clearly seen that the dead spots are
randomly distributed across the LED surface. In contrast, a whole dead area instead of spots was observed
from the LED with 1040 C-grown p-cap layer, as
shown in Figure 99(c). Figure 100 shows measured
ESD results for these LEDs. For the LEDs with
900 C-grown p-cap layers, it was found that the
LEDs with a smaller Au layer thickness could endure
a larger negative ESD pulse voltage. In contrast, Au
9000
1000
8500
1500
7500
2500
ESD (V)
ESD (V)
8000
2000
7000
3000
6500
3500
6000
900
950
1000
1050
1100
Growth temperature C
Figure 98 Measured electrostatic discharge (ESD) results for the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with p-cap layers grown at
various temperatures (Su et al.).
(a)
(c)
(b)
Figure 99 Photographs of the electrostatic discharge (ESD)-damaged light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with (a) and (b) 900 C
and (c) 1040 C-grown p-cap layers (Su et al.).
400
3200
900 C
500
3300
1040 C
600
3500
800
900
3600
1000
3700
1100
ESD (V)
ESD (V)
3400
700
3800
1200
50
60
70
80
Au thickness (A)
90
Figure 100 Electrostatic discharge (ESD) results for the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with various Au layer thicknesses (Su et al.).
layer thickness has almost no effect on the ESD

characteristics of the LEDs with 1040 C-grown pcap layers, as can also be seen from Figure 100. Such
an observation also agrees well with the previous
result that ESD reliability of the LEDs with
1040 C-grown p-cap layers is mainly determined

by the bonding pad design. Figures 101(a) and
101(b) show the photograph of the ESD-damaged
LED using a different process method. According to
emission microscope (EMMI) analysis, we can see
(a)
75
(b)
Figure 101 Photographs of the damaged light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with (a) before and (b) after emission microscope
(EMMI) analysis (Su et al.)
that most of the heat was generated on the dead spot

which is attributed to be the spot from which all the
leakage currents run away. This dead spot will
become an unstable area.
6.02.7 Nitride-Based WLEDs

As a promising candidate for general lighting sources,
the research about WLEDs has come a long way. For
LEDs, white light emission is typically achieved by
mixing two or more monochromatic lights. Due to
the lack of efficient and bright blue LEDs, however,
WLEDs are not practically demonstrated until in the
late 1990s. Nowadays, low-price and high-brightness
WLEDs have been commercialized and available for
general purposes. In this chapter, the colorimetry
fundamentals and the principles and techniques for
WLEDs are introduced and discussed.
6.02.7.1
Colorimetry
To understand the mechanism of white light

generation, one has to know the main light receiver
human eye. Therefore, first, the human eye sensitivity
function is discussed. Subsequently, the standardization,
the measurement, and color-mixing theory are dealt
with. In addition, to characterize a white light source,
the physical parameters such as color rendering index
(CRI) and correlated color temperature (CCT) have to
be explained.
6.02.7.1.1
Human eye sensitivity

For applications of display and lighting, the recipient
of the LEDs light is the human eye. In human vision,
when the light enters the eyeball and is focused on
the retina, the cells in the retina can sense the light in
the red, green, and blue spectral range. As shown in
Figure 102, the sensitivity of human eye to different
colors can be described by eye sensitivity function,
which was first introduced in 1924 and modified in
Eye sensitivity function
100
101
CIE 1931
102
CIE 1978
103
300
400
500
600
Wavelength (nm)
700
800
Figure 102 Comparison of CIE 1931 and CIE 1978 eye sensitivity functions for the photopic vision regime.
1978 (Wyszecku and Stiles, 2000; Schubert, 2006). As

shown in the figure, human eyes have the highest
sensitivity to green light at 550 nm and lowest sensitivities at about 400 and 750 nm.
6.02.7.1.2 Color-matching functions and
chromaticity diagram
Since human eye has different sensitivities to the lights

with various wavelengths, lights with identical optical
power (unit in watt) and different wavelengths may
result in different luminous flux (unit in lumen, lm). In
1931, the International Commission for Illumination
(Commission Internationale de lEclairage, CIE) has standardized the measurement of color by introducing the
color-matching functions and the chromaticity diagram (CIE, 1931) to solve the variations of sensation
of color among different observers. As shown in
Figure 103, the three color-matching functions indicate that the color of any light source can be primarily
described by three variables, and a light source with
certain spectrum can then be readily transformed to
the chromaticity coordinates (Schubert, 2006). The
CIE-1931 chromaticity diagram is shown in
Figure 104, a definite color has a corresponding coordinate. The center point with coordinates of (0.333,
0.333) is the equal energy white point and the edge of
the diagram shows the light color with purity of 1 at a
certain wavelength.
6.02.7.1.3
The mixing of lights

As depicted above, the way we see color makes it
possible to mix two or more colors becoming new
0.9
520
0.8
540
0.7
560
0.6
500
0.5
580
colors. However, for generating a specific color light,

it does not follow the same rules as those to produce a
new mixed color by colorants such as paint, dyes, and
inks. As shown in Figure 105, the colors of mixing
paints are called subtractive colors, whereas those of
mixing light are additive ones. Besides, the three
primary colors for light and paints are also different.
White light is basically obtained by mixing the
three primary colors in a certain ratio; several strategies for obtaining the WLEDs have been reported,
including phosphors for color-conversion, MQWs or
impurities doping in a monolithic chip, and multi-chip
integration. Before introducing these techniques, some
physical parameters should be brought up to characterize the quality of mixed white light. In general, the
white light sources can be evaluated by their luminous
flux, efficiency or efficacy (unit in lm W1), CRI,
CCT, purity, and CIE chromaticity coordinates.
Color-rendering index. CRI is a measurement of the
ability of a white light source to render the colors of
various objects faithfully in comparison with an ideal
or natural light source (Wyszecku and Stiles, 2000).
CRI is measured by comparing the colorimetric
values for a given set of test colors illuminated by
the test light source against the values for the same
test colors illuminated by a reference illuminant with
a color temperature close to that of the test light
source. The maximum value of CRI is 100.
Typically, natural outdoor sunlight has a CRI of
100. In comparison, a standard cool white fluorescent
tube has a CRI of 68, while a warm white one has 56.
Standard incandescent bulbs have a CRI of 40.
Correlated color temperature. The color temperature
of the thermal radiation from an ideal black-body
radiator is defined as equal to its surface temperature
in degree kelvin. CCT is the color temperature of a
black-body radiator, which in the perception of the
human eye most closely matches the light from
sources other than the black-body radiator, such as
fluorescent lamps and LEDs. CCT is also measured
in degree kelvin.
600
0.4
620
6.02.7.2 White Light Emission Techniques

for LEDs
0.3
0.2
0.1
In this section, several techniques to achieve WLEDs are

introduced. These approaches can be divided into two
parts: phosphor-converted and phosphor-free WLEDs.
480
0.0
0.0
460
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
x
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
Figure 103 CIE-1931 (x,y) chromaticity diagram. Also

shown are lines of constant correlated color temperature.
6.02.7.2.1
Phosphor-converted WLEDs
As discussed above, white light can be obtained by
mixing two monochromatic lights. For semiconductor
Color-matching functions x,y,z
2.0
77
CIE-1931
Color-matching functions
1.6
1.2
0.8
0.4
0.0
400
500
600
Wavelength (nm)
700
Figure 104 The CIE-1931 color-matching functions.
(b)
(a)
C
Figure 105 Three primary (a) subtractive colors-cyan,

magenta, and yellow and (b) additive colors-red, blue, and
green and their overlapping (mixing) colors.
materials, the emission color/wavelength is basically

determined by the band gap and one peculiar material
always emits one monochromatic light, without considering the radiative doping or defect levels. In
addition, an organic and inorganic emissive phosphor
with emission wavelength 1 can only be optically
pumped by the light with wavelength shorter than
1. This operation principle makes blue light an
ideal excitation source for phosphor-converted
WLEDs. IIVI materials, such as ZnMgSSe, ZnSSe,
and ZnCdSe, have been intensively studied for blue
and green LEDs (Nishizawa et al., 1985; Okuyama
et al., 1991; Rakennus et al., 1994). However, these
ZnSe-based materials suffer from the poor crystallographic quality that has greatly limited their
performance. For this reason, the phosphor-converted
WLEDs are impractical until the significant success of
GaN-based blue LEDs. In 1997, Schlotter et al. (1997)
have reported that white or monochromatic lights
could be generated by additive mixing or down-
converting the primary blue light with the inorganic

or organic converters, YAGs, and dye molecules. The
device configuration of this type of color-converted
LEDs is described as follows. According to Schlotters
demonstration, a blue LED mounted in a reflector cup
is covered by the luminescence phosphors dissolved in
epoxy resin, while the system is embedded in transparent epoxy resin. The light/color-converters are
excited by blue light and generate lights with definite
colors. Moreover, specifically, the consequence of the
mixing of the phosphor-emitted yellow and chipemitted blue light is the generation of white light.
Thereafter, several phosphors such as polymers, gallates, aluminates, silicates, phosphates, selenides,
sulfides, oxysulfides, nitridosilicates, and nanocrystals/QDs have been demonstrated to down-convert
the blue or UV light to generate the monochromatic
or white lights (Hide et al., 1997; Schlotter et al., 1999;
Narukawa et al., 2002; Sheu et al., 2003; Bowers et al.,
2005). However, the white light can be generated by
simply mixing two narrow emission bands, which are
called complementary wavelengths. For example, a
460-nm blue light in combination with the broad
yellow band centered at 570 nm can generate white
light. However, this dichromatic white light has poor
color-rendering capabilities (CRI < 70) and color stabilities. The red shift of emission wavelength with
increasing current is typically observed, which can
be attributed to thermal-induced band-gap narrowing
at high currents. Such instability will result in a significant variation in color temperature and CRI
(Sheu et al., 2003). It should be mentioned that the
light sources with low CRIs can also be used as lighting in particular places such as illumination of parking
garages and stairwells (Schubert, 2006).
To obtain the white light with higher CRI, trichromatic and tetrachromatic approaches are
sequentially demonstrated (Sheu et al., 2003; Su
et al., 2008). For example, blue-, red-, and greenemitting phosphors are introduced to fabricate the
blue/green/red three band white LEDs. As shown in
Figure 106, it is found that the phosphors can effectively down-convert the n-UV light to blue, green,
and red light, respectively. The observation of peak
from n-UV light can be attributed to the nonuniform
coverage of phosphors on LED chips during package,
since it is well known that down-conversion efficiency strongly depends on phosphor composition
and grain size. It can be observed that no shifts in
EL peaks are found as the injection current increases.
The CCT and CRI of the WLEDs are determined as
5900 K and 75, respectively (Sheu et al., 2003). This
value is high enough for outdoor lighting but insufficient for indoor applications. That is, with proper
mixing ratio of the phosphor composites, the
WLEDs with a very stable CCT as well as a higher
CRI can be obtained. Generally, a trichromatic white
source has acceptable CRIs > 80, whereas tetrachromatic sources have CRIs higher than 90. Recently,
with a long-term development, high-quality pentachromatic and high-efficiency phosphor-converted
WLEDs have been demonstrated (Nizamoglu et al.,
2007; Yang et al., 2007). Other similar methods include
the combination of a GaN-based blue LED and a
wavelength-converted AlGaInP layer, and the
substrate-fluorescent LEDs. For the white photon

recycling semiconductor light-emitting diodes (PRSLEDs), demonstrated by Guo et al. (1999), the blue
light emitted from InGaN/GaN QWs can be photonrecycled by the AlGaInP layer. Most particularly, the
PRS-LED is theoretically efficient (the luminous efficiency exceeds 300 lm W1), which is better than
those of most phosphor-converted WLEDs at that
time. Alternatively, Matsubara et al. (2003) has proposed a fluorescent-impurity doped substrate to
absorb the blue or green light and make fluorescence
of a longer wavelength. The substrates they suggested
could be n-AlGaAs(Si dope), GaP(Zn O dope),
ZnSe(Cu I,
Ag I,
Al I
dope),
and
GaN(O.C.Va(N) dope). Comprehensively, using
phosphors to achieve white light emission is easy and
of low cost. To date, all the commercialized WLEDs
are phosphors-converted. Table 2 lists the phosphors
ever reported for WLED fabrication.
6.02.7.2.2 MQWs for multiple color
emissions
Since the conversion efficiencies of phosphors are not

always high and the down-conversion strategy more
or less is associated with the power dissipation
(Stokes energy loss), the power efficiency of LEDs
would be greatly decreased. In addition, the complicated packaging steps of phosphor-blended WLEDs
are a drawback for mass-production and the reliability of phosphors is always an important issue. One
possible alternative for WLED fabrication is to
monolithically deposit multiple color LEDs simultaneously. Separated active regions for multicolor
Normalized EL intensity (a.u)
0.25
20 mA
40 mA
60 mA
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
300
350
400
450
600
500 550
Wavelength (nm)
650
700
750
Figure 106 Electroluminescence (EL) spectra of an n-UVblue/green/red white light-emitting diode (LED) biased at various
currents (Sheu et al., 2003).
79
Table 2 The phosphors ever reported for color-converted monochromatic and white LEDs
Phosphors
Red
Yellow
Green
Blue
Y2O3S:Eu, AgLa1 yEuy(WO4)2, (Ca,Sr)S:Eu, Ca2Si5N8:Eu2, Sr2Si5N8:Eu2, Sr5Al2O7S:Eu2,

Ba2Si5N8:Eu2, BaSi7N10:Eu2, CaEuLiMoO, BixGd1xVO4, M0.2Ca0.8TiO3:Pr3, ZnO:Eu
Y3Al5O12:Ce3, Sr3SiO5:Eu2, Ca--SiAlON:Eu, Li2SrSiO4:Eu2, CaGa2S4
SrGa2S4:Ru, Alq3, DBPPV, ZnS:Cu, (Ba, Sr)2SiO4:Eu2, (Ca,Sr)S:Ce3, -SiAlON:Eu2,
(Sr1x, Znx)1y(Al1.98, B0.02)O4:Euy2
BaMgAl14O23:Ru, Ba2MgAl16O27:Eu, Sr2CeO4, Sr10(PO4)Cl2:Eu, SrSi2O2-xN22/3X:Eu2, CaS:Pb,
YNbO:Bi
p-Contact
Blue MQW
Wavelength 1
Blue MQW
n-GaN
Grading region
grading
region
p-GaN
n-Contact
Wavelength 2
Green MQW
PL intensity (a.u.)
p-GaN
Green MQW
n-GaN
Sapphire
3.6
Figure 107 The schematic structure of the multiple
quantum-well (MQW) white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs;
Chen et al., 2003).
emission and the mixing light can be white for human

eye perception (Dalmasso et al., 2002). Chen et al.
(2003) has reported on the dual-wavelength nearwhite LEDs that consist of a blue In0.2Ga0.8N/GaN
MQW and a green In0.49Ga0.51N/GaN MQW structure. The device structure is shown in Figure 107.
Obviously, such a structure is electrically similar to a
pnpn thyristor; this normal device exhibits a
high-impedance, low-current OFF state and can
immediately switches as a low-impedance, highcurrent ON state. Figure 108 shows the roomtemperature PL spectrum of the near-WLED. It
can be seen that the peak photon energy for the
blue and green InGaN/GaN MQW are 2.786 and
2.4 eV, respectively. The much weaker green
InGaN/GaN MQW-related PL signal is due to
the fact the green MQW structure is far away
from sample surface. From the current-dependent
EL spectra, the white light can be obtained as the
injection current is lower than 200 mA. While the
injection current is increased to 500 mA, the blue
emission becomes negligibly small and the LED
output becomes pure green. Specifically, the output
power, luminous efficiency, and color temperature
measured at 120 mA are 4.2 mW, 0.8 lm W1, and
9000 K, respectively. Other approaches have the
hybrid WLEDs with double QWs and phosphors,
3.2
2.8
2.4
Photon energy (eV)
2.0
Figure 108 Room-temperature photoluminescence (PL)

spectrum of the white light-emitting diode (WLED) with twocolored multiple quantum*wells (MQWs; Chen et al., 2003).
and RGB MQWs (Yamada et al., 2002; Chen

et al., 2006). For the WLEDs with RGB MQWs
demonstrated by Yamada et al. (2002), the CCT,
CRI, and luminous efficiency are 5060 K, 80.2, and
7.94 lm W1, respectively. Practically, these monolithic phosphor-free WLEDs are usually of low
luminous efficiency due to the difficulty to achieve
high efficiency in long-wavelength region.
6.02.7.2.3
Co-doping in a monolithic chip

Based on the fact that the radiative doping levels or
deep levels in GaN LEDs are often observed, the
white light emission from the LEDs with impurities
co-doped was first reported by Sheu et al. (2002). It is
well known that Si and Zn atoms can form donor and
deep acceptor levels in InGaN. Therefore, white
light can be generated by the incorporation of Si
and Zn atoms into the well layers of InGaN/GaN
MQW LEDs. As shown in Figure 109, two peaks can
be observed in the EL spectra: the short-wavelength
peak at about 430 nm is from QW band-to-band
transition and the peak at about 520 nm with a larger
77-nm FWHM is from the donoracceptor (DA)pair-related emission. The broad DA transition is
favorable for high CRI. As the current is increased,
0.014
Si-Zn co-doped In0.21 Ga0.79 N/GaN MQW
0.012
T = 300 K
10 mA
EL intensity (a.u.)
0.010
5 mA
2 mA
0.008
0.006
0.004
0.002
0.000
350
400
450
500
550
600
Wavelength (nm)
650
700
750
800
Figure 109 Electroluminescence (EL) spectra of the In0.21Ga0.79N/GaN multiple quantum-well (MQW) light-emitting
diode (LED) with Si and Zn co-doped active well layers under different amount of dc injection current (Sheu et al., 2002).
the peak at 520 nm blue-shifted to about 500 nm. This

phenomenon can be attributed to the disparity of
exciting intensity between EL and PL measurements
since DA-pair-related emission strongly depends on
the exciting intensity. To improve the CRI property
of the white light, the concentration of Zn atom should
be increased. However, an excess amount of Zn atoms
could significantly degrade the crystal quality of
InGaN well layers. The CCT and CIE coordinates
of the LED are 6300 K and (0.316, 0.312) when the
injection current is lower than 20 mA. The luminous
efficiency is about 5 lmW1 measured at 10 mA.
Similar work has been demonstrated by Chang et al.
(2003). The authors have fabricated a Si/Zn co-doped
InGaN/GaN MQW WLED with CCT of 4100 K,
CRI of 70, and CIE coordinates of (0.383, 0.405).
Another similar method is the laser doping of Cr in

6H-SiC by Bet et al. (2008).
6.02.7.2.4
Multi-chip integration
White light can also be generated by the combination
of two or three different LED chips. With the integration of separately biased red, green, and blue chips
on a single lamp, high-quality white light can be
obtained. In addition, Lee et al. (2007) have demonstrated that the separated chips can be bonded
together by further processes, as shown in
Figure 110. The ITO layers are for current spreading. Green and blue LEDs are adhered to each other
by benzocyclobutene (BCB). White light generated in
this way has the properties of high purity, high CRI,
n1-pad
n1-pad
ITO
MQW
Blue LED
p-pad
MQW
Blue LED
BCB
BCB
n2-pad
n2-pad
MQW
Green LED
Sapphire
Figure 110 The schematic structure of a dichromatic white light-emitting diode (WLED) by laser lift-off and wafer-bonding
(Lee et al., 2007).
tunable CCT, and high luminous efficiency. The

main drawback of these WLEDs is their high cost.
To summarize, in addition to being used in display and lighting, WLEDs have also found their
applications such as LCD backlight and surgery
light (Craford, 2005; Harbers et al., 2007). Since over
20% of the global electricity consumption is for
illumination, it is expected that SSL can save over
50 % of the energy and will entirely replace conventional incandescent and fluorescent tubes. For
realizing this goal, improvements in internal quantum efficiency, light extraction efficiency, and the
phosphor efficiency are necessary.
6.02.8 Superluminescent LEDs

6.02.8.1
Heat Dissipation
Development of LEDs has progressed over the past

few decades. Recently, high-efficiency LEDs are being
fabricated using the AlInGaP (red to amber) and the
GaN (UV to green) material systems. These LEDs are
beginning to rival the efficiency of most conventional
lighting sources. However, conventional LED grown
on low-thermal-conductivity substrates is embedded
in high thermal resistance packages. Therefore, the
performances of conventional LEDs are limited by
heat dissipation ability of devices. The SLEDs in
both the AlInGaP and the GaN material systems
have developed to surmount the limits of conventional
LEDs. The single-chip white SLED with high power
(>1 W) and high efficiency (>100 lm W1) can satisfy
the requirements of general lighting and headlamps.
The high-performance LEDs for the requirements
have been realized by Nichia (Narukawa et al., 2006),
but the heat dissipation is still a bottleneck for development of SLEDs.
To achieve high-performance SLEDs, the heat
dissipation problem is the most important issue of
LEDs. Heat influences many characteristics of LEDs,
including output power and reliability, and it can be
determined by junction temperature of devices. In
other words, lower junction temperature of LEDs
shows better heat dissipation ability. First, the junction-temperature measurement of LEDs is presented
in this section. Besides, high thermal conductivity
materials are employed in LED structure to reduce
junction temperature of devices. Next, to tackle the
LEDs thermal problem, two new methods, which use
electroplating techniques, are presented. Finally, a
number of LED package issues are introduced,
including die bond intermedium, lead frame, and
81
encapsulation. Package is very important for enhancing LEDs performances.
6.02.8.1.1
Junction temperature
Junction temperature, which refers to the temperature
of active region in LEDs, is an important parameter. It
influences the performances of LEDs, such as efficiency, output power, reliability, peak wavelength
shift, and spectral width. Several methods, such as
micro-Raman spectroscopy (Todoroki et al. 1985),
threshold voltage (Abdelkader et al., 1992), thermal
resistance (Murata and Nakada, 1992), photothermal
reflectance microscopy (PRM; Epperlein and Bona,
1990), EL (Epperlein, 1993), and PL (Hall et al., 1992),
have been reported and used for junction-temperature
measurements of LDs. For a white dichromatic LED
source, a noncontact method based on the emission
peak ratio has also been reported (Gu and Narendran,
2004). However, the issue of accuracy is generated for
Raman spectroscopy, EL, and PL methods. The
threshold-voltage method and PRM are not suitable
for LEDs. Moreover, the noncontact method (Gu and
Narendran, 2004), which uses the emission peak ratio
of a dichromatic LED, cannot be used for monochromatic LEDs. Forward-voltage method is employed to
measure the junction temperature of GaN-based LEDs
due to the advantages of accuracy and convenience.
The relationship between the forward voltage (Vf) and
junction temperature is reported by Xi et al. (2005a,
2005b). They derived the theoretical model of the
temperature dependence of the forward voltage,
which was also compared with their experimental
results. It revealed that the forward-voltage method
has a high accuracy of 3 C and can be used for LEDs
(Xi et al., 2005).
The forward-voltage method consists of a
calibration measurement and the actual junctiontemperature measurement. In the calibration measurement step, the LED chip under test is put in a
temperature-controlled oven for obtaining the junction temperature. A pulsed forward current (with
duty cycle 0.1%) drives the LED chip under varied
oven temperatures. The very small duty cycle is used
in order to keep the junction temperature equal to
the ambient temperature. An oscilloscope measures
the forward voltage, Vf, of the LED chip at different
oven temperatures. As shown in Figure 111, the
relation between the forward voltage and the junction temperature is established and can be fitted by
Vf A BTO
Forward voltage Vf (V)
4.2
GaN UV LED, 375 nm
Pulsed current
Duty cycle = 0.1%
4.0
3.8
lf (mA) =
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
3.6
3.4
3.2
3.0
Slope:
2.3 mV/K
20
40
60
80
100 120
Oven temperature To (C)
140
Figure 111 Calibration measurement vs. different pulsed

injection currents. The dashed line is a linear fit for the
experimental data (Xi et al., 2005).
where TO is the oven temperature, and A and B are

the fitting parameters (Xi et al., 2005).
By driving a dc forward current to the chip, the dc
forward-voltage values are measured under steadystate thermal condition. Therefore, the junction temperatures for different dc currents are given by (Xi
et al., 2005)
Tj
Vf A
B
Junction temperature Tj (C)
To satisfy the high-brightness requirements of

general lighting, it is necessary to increase the injection current (or input power) of LEDs. However, the
junction temperature of LEDs will increase with
injection current. Figure 112 shows that the junction
temperature increases with higher injection current
after the actual junction-temperature measurement.
Therefore, higher junction temperature indicates
120
80
Linear fit
60
40
20
0
20
6.02.8.1.2
The design of the LED itself is important for heat
dissipation, because the LED junction temperature
and reliability are directly related to the thermal
design of devices. If the heat is not managed properly
and temperatures rise, this heat will shorten the LED
lifetime and make the LED fail. Therefore, enhancing
the thermal conductivity between the ambient and
LEDs is very preferable for thermal management.
The general LED structure after packaging
usually consists of a chip attached to the base of a
lead frame via a silver-filled adhesive, gold wire to
connect the LED chip to electrodes and an epoxy to
encapsulate the LED chip as shown in Figure 113. A
thermal circuit as an electrical circuit analogy is the
expression used to explain the thermal model from
ambient to junction of LEDs as shown in Figure 114.
Thermal conductivity (W/mK) and thermal resistance ( C W1) are both parameters of materials to
show the thermal properties.
To reduce junction temperature of LEDs, the
high thermal conductivity materials are required in
the LEDs structure. Table 3 shows a number of the
thermal conductivities of materials, which are usually
used in LED structure (Jordan et al., 2006).
6.02.8.2
GaN UV LED
peak = 375 nm
100
that the heat dissipation problem is serious in LEDs.

Besides, the wavelength, lift, and color coordinates
are also influenced by junction temperature.
Reducing junction temperature of LEDs is important, especially for high-current operation, and it can
be achieved by using high thermal conductivity
materials in the LED structure.
80
100
40
60
DC forward current lf (mA)
120
Figure 112 The junction temperature vs. the dc forward

current in actual junction temperature measurement
(Xi et al., 2005).
Electroplating Substrate
In general, the thermal conductivities of substrates

for LEDs are low, so that the heat dissipation of
devices is degraded and the maximum output
power of LEDs is limited under high-power operation. Wafer bonding and LLO techniques have
been used for combining epitaxial layers with
high thermal conductivity substrates. However,
the performance of LEDs may degrade during
high-temperature wafer bonding process. This problem can be resolved by electroplating metal
substrates for high-power LEDs. The fabrication
of electroplated substrate and LEDs is described
in the following sections.
83
Epoxy
Pad
LEDs
Pad
Lead
frame
Substrate
Silver glue
Electrode
Electrode
Slug
Lead frame
Lead frame
Figure 113 The general light-emitting diode (LED) structure after packaging.
Epoxy
Substrate
Slug
Ambient
Ambient
LED junction
Silver glue
Figure 114 Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) thermal model.
Table 3 Thermal conductivities of materials are

usually used in LEDs structure (Jordan et al. 2006)
Materials
Heat conductivity (W/m-k)
LED substrates
GaN
Sapphire
SiC (crystalline, 6H)
130
3540
490
Substrates and wiring materials

Al
237
Cu
401
AlN
180
Mo
138
Si
150
Au
318
Ag
429
Ni
91
Dielectrics and adhesives
Pure epoxy
0.37
Filled epoxy
1
Ag filled adhesive
<5
Solder(Au80Sn20)
59
6.02.8.2.1
LEDs
Electroplated copper substrate
Since GaN-based LEDs were commercially available

in the early 1990s (Nalamura et al., 1991), several
studies have been made for the development of
GaN-based LEDs. GaN-based LEDs are potential
candidates for the applications of general lighting,
backlight of LCD, and headlamp of vehicles. In recent
years, GaN-based LEDs were grown heteroepitaxially
onto sapphire or SiC substrates due to the lack of

high-quality GaN substrates. However, the performance of GaN-based LEDs was restricted by the
sapphire substrate due to the poor heat dissipation.
Therefore, the LLO and wafer bonding techniques
are combined to fabricate GaN-based LEDs on high
thermal conductivity substrates for improved performance (Kelly et al., 1996; Wong et al., 1998; Chu et al.,
2003). Figure 115 shows the schematic diagram of the
laser etching and LLO process setup (Chu et al., 2003).
The fabrication process of the LED on a Cu substrate
is shown in Figures 116(a)116(e) (Chu et al., 2003).
Figure 117 shows the light output powercurrent
(LI) characteristics for the LLO-LEDs on Cu and
the regular LEDs on sapphire under high-current cw
operation condition (Chu et al., 2003). As compared to
the regular LEDs fabricated on the sapphire, the LLOLEDs on Cu showed a significant increase in light
output power. However, this method requires complicated fabrication processes and higher thermal budget,
so that yield and performance improvement still need
to be considered.
Electroplating technique has the advantage of
low-temperature process (3060 C) for fabricating
GaN-based LEDs on metal substrates. The process
flow and LED structures are shown in Figure 118
(Lin et al., 2005b). A mesa structure was etched
by using ICP in order to achieve the electrical
current isolation (Figure 118(a)). Then, Pt film
was deposited onto the p-GaN top layer for the
ohmic contact and reflective mirror. Before the
CCD
Mask stage
Beam delivery
system
Beam
analyzer
Attenuator
Projection
system
= 248 nm
KrF
Sample
(Lambda physik model LPX210)
Working
stage
Excimer laser
Controller
Figure 115 The schematic diagram of laser etching and LLO process setup (Chu etal.).
(a)
(b)
Wafer bonding
(c)
(d)
Pulsed laser
Sapphire
substrate
LEDs
structures
Bonding metal
Sapphire
substrate
Sapphire
substrate
Sapphire
substrate
LEDs
structures
(e)
LEDs
structures
LEDs
structures
Bonding metal
Copper
substrate
Copper
substrate
Bonding metal
Copper
substrate
Copper
substrate
LEDs
structures
Bonding metal
Bonding metal
Copper substrate
Hot plate 40 C
Figure 116 The schematic diagram of the fabrication process for the LEDs on a Cu substrate using LLO and wafer bonding:
(a) bonding metal deposition, (b) Cu substrate bonding, (c) laser processing, (d) separation, (e) freestanding p-side down LLOLEDs on Cu (Chu et al., 2004).
80
LLO-LEDs
Regular LEDs
Power intensity (a.u.)
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
50
100
150
200
250
Current (mA)
300
350
400
Figure 117 Comparison of the LI characteristics for the LLO-LEDs on Cu, and the regular LEDs on sapphire under high
current cw operation conditions (Chu et al., 2004).
(a)
(b)
PR
PR
PR
Pt
PR
Pt
LED
LED
LED
LED
u-GaN
u-GaN
u-GaN
u-GaN
Sapphire substrate
85
Sapphire substrate
(c)
(d)
Sapphire substrate
Copper
PR
Copper
PR
PR
PR
Pt
Pt
u-GaN
u-GaN
LED
LED
LED
LED
u-GaN
u-GaN
Pt
Sapphire substrate
(e)
Pt
PR
PR
PR
PR
Copper
Copper
(f)
LED
LED
LED
LED
Pt
Pt
Pt
Pt
Copper
Copper
Copper
Copper
Figure 118 Diagrams of fabrication process for large-area vertical n-GaNmirrorCu LED: (a) ICP etching; (b) Pt mirror
coating, photolithography; (c) Cu electroplating; (d) LLO; (e) u-GaN removal; (f) n-pad metallization, and free-standing n-GaN
mirrorCu LED chip (Lin et al., 2005b).
electroplating process, the device sidewall and

separation channel were protected by the thick
photoresist (Figure 118(b)), followed by the electroplating of copper as a metallic substrate
(Figure 118(c)). After the illumination of laser
beam, the sapphire substrate was separated from the
LED structure (Figure 118(d)). The undoped GaN
epilayer was then removed (Figure 118(e)). Finally,
the TiAl film was deposited on the n-GaN epilayer
as the n-contacts (Figure 118(f); Lin et al., 2005b).
The increased light output of LED achieved
with electroplating copper substrate is shown in
Figure 119 (Lin et al., 2005b). The luminance intensity of the vertical conductive LED on Cu substrate
was about 2.7 times higher as compared with that of
the LED on sapphire substrate (at 20 mA). The light
output power of the LED on Cu substrate was about
twofold stronger (at 500 mA). A lesser peak wavelength shift under high current injection was also
observed. As compared with LED on sapphire substrate, the LED on Cu substrate has a higher current
capability due to the higher thermal conductivity

copper substrate. As shown in Figure 120 (Lin et al.,
2005b), the junction heating effect on both LEDs can
be observed by the variation of emission peak wavelength under different injection currents. When the
driving current increased from 300 to 800 mA, the
drastic red shift of peak wavelength was observed for
the LED on sapphire substrate. However, the peak
wavelength showed a continued blue shift for the
LED on Cu substrate. Therefore, this result indicates
that electroplating copper substrate is useful for
improving the performance of LEDs.
6.02.8.2.2
LEDs
Electroplated nickel Substrate
By using wafer bonding, LLO, and electroplating

copper techniques, the GaN-based LEDs on new
substrates, such as Si and Cu, have been reported
(Wang et al., 1998, 2001a, 2001b, 2002; 2005a; Luo
et al., 2002; Chu et al., 2003; Horng et al., 2004; Tan
et al., 2004; Wuu et al., 2004; Fujii et al., 2004).
50
n-metal
Output power (mW)
40
n-GaN
p-GaN
Pt-mirror
Cu
30
20
p-metal
n-metal
GaN
LED
10
Sapphire
100
200
300
Currrent (mA)
400
500
Figure 119 Output power versus injection current

characteristics of large-area vertical n-GaNmirrorCu and
GaNsapphire LED samples (Lin et al., 2005b).
485
p-metal
Peak wavelength (nm)
n-metal
GaN
LED
480
Sapphire
n-metal
n-GaN
475
470
p-GaN
Pt-mirror
Cu
200
400
600
800
1000
Current (mA)
Figure 120 Electroluminescence peak wavelength as a
function of injection current for large-area vertical GaN
mirrorCu and GaNsapphire LED samples (Lin et al., 2005b).
The bonding material is responsible for the thermal

stability, contact resistance, bonding strength, etc.
However, the difficulty of chip dicing process is
increased for the thick copper substrate (>100 mm).
To solve this problem, a patterned LLO process and
an electroplated nickel layer are reported for the
fabrication of a vertical-structured GaN-based LED
(VM-LED) by Wang et al. (2005a). By using nickel
layer as the metallic substrate, a higher thermal
stability, conductivity, and mechanical strength can

be achieved for high-power operations. Moreover, it
is easy to perform the chip dicing by using nickel
substrates.
For the fabrication of VM-LEDs, e-beamevaporated Ni (2.5 nm)/Au (4.5 nm) film was first
deposited and annealed for achieving ohmic contact
to p-GaN. Subsequently, Ti (15 nm)/Al (400 nm)/Ti
(15 nm)/Au (200 nm) was deposited by e-beam evaporation as a mirror layer and an adhesive layer.
Then, a nickel layer with the thickness of about
4550 mm was electroplated. To remove the sapphire
substrate, a 248-nm KrF excimer laser was directed
through a copper mask to the back of the sapphire
substrate. It should be noted that the copper mask for
this patterned LLO process controlled the size and
shape of laser beam reaching the sample, so that
different chip sizes can be obtained. The local heating and decomposition of the GaN were then caused
by the laser irradiation process, which separated the
electroplated-Ni-adhered GaN epilayer from the
sapphire substrate. After the patterned LLO process,
an ICP was used to etch the u-GaN epilayer in order
to expose the n-GaN layer. Finally, the VM-LED
was realized with the formation of n-type contact pad
(Wang et al., 2005a).
Figure 121 shows the top view of LED chips after
the patterned LLO process (Wang et al., 2005a). The
chip size is 300 300 mm2 with a pitch of 250 mm.
The enlarged view of sample was also shown by the
SEM. It can be seen that the squared-shape epitaxial
structure has a smooth surface (Wang et al., 2005a).
Figure 122(a) illustrates schematically the cross
section of the VM-LED (Wang et al., 2005a). For
comparison, regular LEDs with the same epilayer
structure, shown in Figure 122(b), have also been
fabricated. Figure 123 shows the IV characteristics
of VM-LED and regular LED (Wang et al., 2005a).
The forward voltage (Vf) of VM-LED at 20 (80) mA
is 3.01 (3.39) V, which is about 10 (21)% lower than
that of the regular LED. This result can be attributed
to the less current crowding effect as well as the
shorter current conduction path provided by metallic
substrates.
Figure 124 shows the measured LopI characteristics of the VM-LED and regular LED (Wang et al.,
2005a). As compared to regular LED, the light output
power of VM-LED at 2080 mA is more than twicein magnitude. The Lop improvement of the VM-LED
should be attributed to the larger effective lightemitting area as well as the better light reflection
provided by the mirror layer. In addition, the Lop of
87
200 m
Figure 121 Top view of LED samples after the patterned LLO process (Wang et al., 2005a).
(a)
(b)
N-pad
P-pad
P-GaN
Active layer
N-GaN
Active layer
P-GaN
Adhesive/Mirror layer
N-pad
N-GaN
Electroplating Ni layer
Electroplating Ni layer
Figure 122 Schematic diagram of the fabricated device structures: (a) the VMLED with electroplating nickel substrate and
(b) regular LED with the same epilayer structure and die size (Wang et al., 2005a).
VM-LED
100
80
Light output power (mA)
25
VM-LED
Regular-LED
60
40
20
Regular LED
20
15
10
5
0
0
2
3
4
Forward voltage (V)
Figure 123 Comparison of the measured IV

characteristics of VM-LED and regular LED (Wang et al.,
2005a).
VM-LED increases steadily with the injection current up to about 520 mA. On the other hand, the Lop
of regular LED tends to decrease at around 120 mA.
The inherent joule heating mainly causes the degradation of Lop under high driving current. For the
same chip size, the improvement in the maximum
allowable injection current of the VM-LED is about
100
200
300
400
500
600

Figure 124 Comparison of the measured Lop-I
characteristics of VM-LEDs and regular LEDs (Wang et al.,
2005a).
4.3 times as compared with the regular LED.

Therefore, it suggests that the electroplated Ni substrate is suitable for heat dissipation, especially when
LEDs were operated at higher injection current
(Wang et al., 2005a).
6.02.8.3
Die Bond Intermedium
6.02.8.3.1
The quality of the die attaching of LEDs is quite

important for the reliability of the package (Szabo
et al., 2006; Kim et al., 2008). Epoxy is one of the first
encapsulation materials applied in primitive semiconductor package process, especially in LED package. At
that time, the transparency and adherence were the
major demands. Along with the development of package technique, people were seeking for the higher
performance, which was a challenge to high-power
LEDs. For this reason, there were more and more
demands for die bonding material in the process of
LED package. It was from epoxy-based intermedium
to higher thermal conductivity epoxy-based intermedium (Ag, Al2O3, AlN mixing) and solder paste.
Nowadays, the method of using epoxy-based material
was replaced by other lower interface thermal resistance techniques. As shown in Figure 125, the most
key issue of the package procedures must be the first
step, die bonding. The choice of die bonding material
was directly influenced by the light extraction, thermal dissipation, and reliability of packaged devices.
Due to the production cost, there were three types of
materials always used for the LED die attaching:
epoxy, silver paste, and solder. These are discussed
in the following.
Epoxy
Epoxy resin is the major type of structural adhesive
and engineering adhesive used in the applications of
human life, and has high-performance bonding
strength. In addition, epoxy resin is developed to
apply for any application. It can be used for metal,
glass, and plastics. It can be fabricated as adamantine
or flexible, high optical transparent or opaque, and
fast or slow setting. Among common adhesives,
epoxy resin is unmatched in heat and chemical resistance. Generally, epoxy resin cured with heat will be
more heat- and chemical-resistant than those cured
at room temperature. Some epoxies are cured by
exposure to UV light. Such epoxies are commonly
used in optics, fiber optics, opto-electronics, and
dentistry (May, 1988). Moreover, the basic requirements of these epoxies used in die bonding could be
described as follows:
high transparency,
low thermal stress, and
lower curing temperature
6.02.8.3.2
Silver paste
At present, silver paste and eutectic are always used
for mounting semiconductor chips. Eutectic is
usually used for integrated circuit (IC) bonding
(a)
LED chip
Lead
Shell
Die bonding material
(b)
Lead
Shell
Figure 125 Die bonding process diagram (a) side view (b) top view.
LED chip
because of high reliability but high cost is the serious

problem. The cost reduction and improvement of
productivity are intensely required, and the lower
stress is also required. In addition, the improvement
of processability of silver paste is also required because
the high-speed coating process of paste is intended to
improve the productivity of die bonding process.
Silver paste materializes the low stress associated
with semiconductor chips and alloy reflective metal
cup of lead frame, high reliability and feasibility of
rapid curing, and fast painting operation directly connected to the improved mass productivity of die.
Only the highly reliable silver paste can attain all
of these requirements described above. The base
resins for silver paste are epoxy and polyamide
resins, and can be classified into solvent and nonsolvent types. The polyamide resins, however, can
hardly attain the purpose of rapid curing for improving mass productivity of chip, whereas the solvent
type has the disadvantages of limited painting methods due to short tack-free time and void formation.
As to the improvement of mass productivity of chip,
on the other hand, the painting speed has been made
extremely fast, and short-time in-line curing on a
hot plate has been attempted in place of the conventional batch-type curing in an oven. To meet these
requirements, some companies have investigated
nonsolvent-type epoxy resin silver paste with better
processability and improved mass productivity
(Okabe et al., 1988). Moreover, the base requirements
of silver paste used in die bonding should include the
following characteristics:
higher thermal conductivity than epoxy, lower

stress than eutectic;electrical conduction requirement; and long, hot, oxidizing ambient processing;
solvent/binder outgassing, and brittleness.
6.02.8.3.3
Solder
Solder paste could be fabricated from the mix of
solder particles and flux. It is often used in the automated soldering process. In the solder paste, it is
quite important that the spheres of metal should be
regular in size and have a low level of oxide. For the
die bonding of LED package process, solder paste is
deposited on the reflective cup of lead frame. The
solder particles are frequently an alloy of tin and
lead, with possibly other tertiary metal alloyed,
although newer law is forcing a move to a lead-free
solder.
Solder paste should be stored in a gas-tight container at lower temperature but should be warmed to
89
room temperature for use. Air exposure to the solder

particles in the raw powder form results in oxidization. Viscosity of the solder paste could be changed
with applied shear force. As with all fluxes used in
electronics, residues left behind may be harmful to
the PCB circuit (PCB, printed circuit board), and
standards exist to measure the safety of the residues
left behind. Hence, no-clean solder pastes are quite
popular in some countries.
Depositing the solder paste is just the first step of
the soldering process, followed by preheating and
reflow. In addition to forming the solder joint itself,
the paste flux must have sufficient tackiness to hold
components while passing through the various processes, or perhaps moved around the factory.
Microscopic evaluation of solder paste reveals the
spherical metallic nature of the paste, which to the
naked eye appears as a gray, plasticine-like material.
The base requirements of solder paste used in die
bonding should include the following characteristics:
inorganic, good thermal and electrical conductivity; and

backside metal, capable of producing high stress.
As to the method of using solder, because of the

unsuitable control of thickness and flux, it would
form dewetting, nonwetting, tombstoning, and
voids. It will not only influence the property of solder
bonding directly but also influence the reliability of
packaged devices. It was similar to the most-used
die-bonding material, namely epoxy; the outside
temperature and humidity could result in a poor
adherence of the solder. In early days, the flux of
solder bond contained chloride to remove the surface
oxide layer. Recently, environmental consciousness
has been rising year by year. In 1987, the Montreal
Protocol limited the use of chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs). To this day, the new-generation flux still
remains some residue on the surface which is harmful
for long-term use and affects the reliability. This
technique required a breakthrough.
It was compared with three types of most useful
die bond material (Table 4). Epoxy was mainly used
in low-power LEDs because of the transparence
demand of small LED rather than the thermal dissipation. Otherwise, cost is the other reason that
epoxy is still used for the die bond material of
small-size LEDs. The thermal conductivity of silver
paste is higher than epoxy. Compared with eutectic
process, the solder bond of high-power LEDs has
lower process temperature and lower cost; it was
used in high-power LED die bond.

Table 4 Comparison base requirements of the common three types die bonding materials
6.02.8.4
Light transmittance
Electrical conductivity
Epoxy
Silver paste
Solder
Bestfff
Worst
Worse
Worst
Worse
Best
Worse
Best
Lead Frame
Lead frame plays an important role in LED package.

The functions that it can provide include (1) supports
and protects die and gold wire, (2) raises the light
extraction efficiency, (3) provides a heat dissipation
path of chip, and (4) is useful in LED module application (power deliver) (Cao, 2008).
The package companies have their own package
structures and patents. To make a comprehensive survey, the lead frame can be classified into two: (1) all
metal lead frame also known as through hole
(Figure 126), which is covered by hardened resin and
(2) material-outside-cover lead frame (Figure 127),
which is mainly in surface mount device (SMD) form.
All metal lead frame, the most familiar package
form, that is, conventional N
LED lamp
(Figure 126(a)), is used in indicator light, traffic
light, and flashlight. Besides, the super flux
(Figure 126(b)) is used in taillight of motorbike/

automobile. All metal lead frame was usually used
for low-power (small chip size) LED package; other
areas of use include high-power conventional N
LED lamp, for example, such as the 8-mm diameter
lamp. Super flux LED has more metal surface area
and results in a better thermal dissipation. Moreover,
the structure of four leads provides a stability to fix
on PCB board. The properties of better thermal dissipation and better stability of fixed-on-board superflux LED could also be applied in some lower-power
lighting modules.
The main market of material-outside-cover lead
frame was in the small-size chip package for backlighting, such as cell phone, small-size backlight of
LCD. According to market demand, the use of highpower LED was increased day by day and the lead
frame of SMD form used in high-power LED was
(b)
(a)
Top view
Top view
Chip
Slide view
Side view
Reflective cup
Cathode
Anode
Figure 126 Schematic and graphs of common commercialized through hole lead-frame (a) N lamp:the most common
conventional leaf-frame; (b) Super flux LED:majority used on automobile.
raised. Outside-cover material was from early polyphthalamide (PPA) to the most familiar liquid
crystalline polymer (LCP), ceramic was used in
high-power LED and silicon-based lead frame.
Therefore, the next key issue of package techniques
was the conduction of the heat accompanying highpower LEDS operating at high currents.
As to the choice of lead-frame material, it would
be introduced by the schematic structure of basic
high-power SMD lead frame (Figure 127). The
basic high-power SMD lead frame can be divided
into inside metal (lead and slug) and outside cover
metal (shell), which are discussed in the following.
The structure of inside metal comprises an electric conductive lead and a temporary heat stock slug.
The development of the material was from the early
Alloy-42 used in IC package to the recent Alloy-194,
high conductive Alloy-02Z, and oxygen-free copper
(OFC). The pressing action completes the fabrication
Lead
91
of the inside metal of the lead frame, and the metal

thin slice would determine the shape of the
frame structure. It would be electroplated at highreflectivity silver film before the pressing. Its advantages include the fast process, high production, and
low cost. The drawback is that it requires highprecision mold before fabrication, which is expensive.
Therefore, it was not suitable for small-scale production. As to the lead and slug, it can be fabricated
separately or at the same time.
As to the choice of outside-cover material, it was
based on the physical properties of the material.
Besides the hygroscopic, heat-resistant, and anticorrosive properties, it also needs to take into
account the reflectivity of material and light absorption of all kinds of light. Currently, industries are
concerned primarily about balancing the cost; the
outside-cover materials (for the frame) in common
use are PPA, LCP, and ceramic. The first two belong
Shell

Slug
Figure 127 Schematic and graphs of common surface mountable LED (SMD LED).
to plastic and the latter belongs to ceramic. A comparison is given in the following.
6.02.8.4.1
Ceramic
Ceramic material has been widely used in presentday electric device package because of the high thermal conductivity, good environment stability, and
high moisture-proof capability (Yusoff et al., 1994),
making it one of the key package materials for highpower LEDs.
The desired material properties of ceramics are
better than those of plastics. Besides the higher
mechanical strength, dimension stability, thermal stability, and chemical corrosion, a ceramic also has heat
conductivity and electrical insulation properties that a
plastic cannot have. For this reason, the material can
be considered as one of the most promising materials.
Ceramic materials, such as alumina (Al2O3) and aluminum nitride (AlN), were the best choice used in
LED lead frame. For the complex material, AlN and
Al2O3 have the same material hardness and strength,
but AlN is more suitable than Al2O3 because of
the property of nonreaction with metal and higher
thermal conductivity. Unfortunately, high material
property was attributed to the higher cost and it is
used in high-power and high-level LED production.
AlN is a man-made ceramic material; the N atom
and Al atom were combined with covalent bond, and
form a wurtzite structure (Bohning et al., 1999). It is
similar to diamond and contains strong covalent
bonds. The high-strength covalent bond attributes
AlN with a high melting point. The resonance of
covalent bands forms phonons and generates heat,
resulting in a high thermal conductivity of AlN.
The physical and chemical properties are given in
Table 5.
6.02.8.5
Encapsulation
For the encapsulation of package, the basic request

was high-transparency, high-reflection, and low
water absorption rate. As the encapsulated material
would cover the chip surface directly, it not only

needs to reduce light absorption but also needs to
choose a reflection index close or smaller than the
semiconductor, which was the one of the conditions
of choice. According to the Snells law (Smith, 2000),
as light enters the encapsulated device, the chip and
capsule would form an interface, and the incidence
angle and output angle can be expressed as follows:
nchip sinin ngel sinout
As shown in Figure 128, refractive index of material 1, ngel, is smaller than that of (nchip) of material 2
(chip); the angle of incidence for light from material 2
to material 1 would be more than the critical angle
and results in a total reflection and lower light
extraction rate. The critical angle was supposed that
the light is going to the x-axis and the reflection angle
is 90 ; that is, out 90 :
nchip sin in ngel sin out
Could be rewritten as
nchip sin in ngel sin90 ngel
Thus,

nchip sin 1 nchip =ngel c Critical angle
Hence,

nchip > ngel ! c sin 1 nchip =ngel
6.02.8.5.1
Epoxy
The early package was made by epoxy. With time,
techniques have evolved, and the requirements of
encapsulated materials have become more stringent.
Epoxy can be divided into epoxy resin and epoxy
hardener. The viscosity of epoxy resin is higher than
epoxy hardener. After mixing, it will put into the
module or bowl of lead frame, and then baked and
hardened. Epoxy was used in the package of conventional N LED lamp; it needs to fix the frame before
epoxy is placed. After baking, hardening, and peeling
Table 5 AlN physical and chemical characteristics

AlN
Item
Reference value
Item
Reference value
Thermal conductivity (@25 C)

Refractivity (@2500 A)
Specific heat (@300K)
Density
270 W mK
n 2.5, n0 2.4
7.2 cal/molK
3.26 g/cm3
Linear expansion coefficent (@25200 C)

Resistivity (@25 C)
Dielectric constant
Melting point
4.03 106/ C
1013
cm
a0 9.14
3300 K

Table 6 Base requirements comparison of the common
encapsulation materials
Epoxy Physical
properties
Water absorption
Adhesive force
Chemical stability
Viscosity
Strength
Limit operating
temperature
Thermal resistance
Hardness
Coefficient of thermal
expansion
Silicone

Optical Properties
Transparency
Refractive Indux
Ultraviolet stability
( : better/higher)
Table 7 Comparison base requirements of

three common types shall material of lead frame
PPa
LCP
Ceramic
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

(small)

( : Best, *: Secondary)
(a)
Lead frame
LED chip
(b)
Gel
out
in
off, the process is complete (Narendran, 2005). The

advantage is higher reflection index, higher hardness,
better adherence strength, and lower water absorption rate; the drawback is denaturalization and
etiolation, after high temperature or UV light illumination. Currently, the white LED is excited mainly
by the light with blue wavelength, the shorter wavelength of blue light is close to the UV region (Wang
et al., 2008). The problem of denaturalization needs to
be overcome.
6.02.8.5.2

Thermal property
Thermal expansion
Thermal conducitivity
Corrosion resist
Reflectivity
Size stability
Cost
93
Chip
Figure 128 Schematic of the Snell law in LED package (a)

LED package structure (b) incidence and refraction.
Silicone
The current trend of LED package materials is the
evolvement from polymer to silicone because of the
lower thermal resistance and better reliability.
Particularly used for high-power LED package, silicone brings much better performance than polymer.
However, this trend is similar to the future package
requirements, which were sketched by the US
Department of Energy, the Optoelectronics
Industry Development Association, and the
National Electronics Manufacturers Association
roadmaps (Norris et al., 2005). Currently, semiconductor technologies have improved such that LEDs
can be driven at higher current. At higher operating
current, higher junction temperature becomes one of
the problems at the same time.
In the past, encapsulation material such as epoxy
was normally used to protect an electrical device;
however, it could not provide light output stability
for the required reliability of present optical devices.
Key issues for silicone encapsulant replaced polymer
in high-brightness and high-power LEDs must be the
more stable thermo-optical properties compared to
older encapsulant materials such as epoxy. Silicones
are quite stable as exposed under UV, even at high
humidity and high temperature (Lin et al., 2006).
In LED package process, the attaching strength
and quality between package encapsulant and lead
frame will directly influence the device reliability.
Regarding the reliability, the primary requirements
should be high temperature and high humidity, thermal shock, pressure cooker test, and IR reflow.
Commercial products needed the long lifetime test
report to confirm the attaching quality and device
reliability. Regarding both commonly used encapsulation material, we make a brief comparison in the
following.
6.02.8.5.3
Phosphor distribution
Semiconductor white light LED is predicted to be
the potential candidate for next-generation general
lighting (Luo et al., 2005). Output qualities, including

CCT, CRI, and lifetime, are still the issues for general
lighting applications. Recently, Nichia fabricated the
high luminous efficiency white light LED,
139 lm W1, by using the patterned sapphire substrates
and an ITO contact as a p-type electrode (Narukawa
et al., 2006). Now, white phosphor-converted LED
(PC-LED) pumped by blue LED die has dominated
the white LED market because of its simple structure,
low cost, and high stability. However, the lifetime of
white PC-LED (10 000 h) is lesser than that of blue
LED (50 000100 000 h) (Narendran, 2005). In the
white PC-LED, part of the blue light emitted by the
blue LED die is absorbed by the phosphor particles
and then isotropic re-emitted yellow light from the
phosphor particles. Part of the re-emitted yellow light
is backward-returned to the blue LED die, and finally
absorbed by the LED package converting into heat.
Thermal effect has degraded the performance of blue
LED die and the quality of phosphor particles, and has
caused the lifetime decrease of PC-LED. The concept
of using phosphor-on-top (POT; Figure 129(a))
PC-LEDs to replace phosphor-in-cup (PIC;
Figure 129(b)) PC-LED was proposed by Schubert
and co-workers (Li et al., 2003; Kim et al., 2005c), and
they have discussed the effect of different phosphor
arrangements, encapsulant geometries, and reflector
cups. In this paper, the effect of two different phosphor
arrangements on growth and decline of luminous flux
and intensity has been clearly demonstrated.
By keeping the phosphor layer away from the die
could extract the phosphor back-scattered photons.
The luminous efficiency of PC LEDs can increase
significantly. This improvement is attributed to a
reduced re-absorption probability of phosphor
back-scattered photons by the LED die. The
(a) Phosphor-in-cup
improvement of optical characteristics by using the

POT package can be up to 20% compared with the
PIC package. Moreover, keeping the phosphor layer
away from the die could extract the phosphor backscattered photons. This improvement is attributed to
a reduced re-absorption probability of phosphor
back-scattered photons by the LED die. In addition,
moving the phosphor layer away has an additional
advantage of improving the lifetime of PC-LEDs.
The POT package exhibits better stability of CCT
than that of the PIC package during the life test.
6.02.8.5.4
Nanoparticles
Nanoparticle is a solid particle in the 11000-nm
ranges. It includes other forms as nano-cluster,
nano-powder, and nanocrystal. The nanoparticles in
metal and metal-oxide ceramic nano-powders tend
to be roughly the same size in all three dimensions,
with dimensions ranging from 2 or 3 nm up to a few
hundred (The Royal Society and The Royal
Academy of Engineering, 2003). Primary factors
include the increase in the ratio of surface area to
volume, and the size of the particle moving into the
realm where quantum effects predominate. The large
surface area of nanoparticles also results in several
interactions between the intermixed materials in
nano-composites, leading to special properties such
as increased strength and/or increased chemical/
heat resistance (Holister et al., 2003).
Nanoparticle mixed material, such as the encapsulant of semiconductor package, can improve the
electrical conductivity for electric-connect die
bonding, thermal conductivity, and optical transmissivity. As nanoparticle mixed within polymer
materials could increase structure reinforcement,
verified by a higher glass transition temperature
and other mechanical properties, these nanoparticles are hard, and impart their properties to the
polymer (plastic) for optical device encapsulant
(Holister et al., 2003).
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6.02 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

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6.

02 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

MQWs for multiple color emissions

reductions in electrical energy consumption,

The conversion efficiency in 2008 had reached

The LED converts electric current into light.

30 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

Green Yellow Orange

Figure 2 Visible light spectra and the corresponding

semiconductors. The emitting wavelength of LEDs is

where h is the Planck constant in J s, c is the velocity

Figure 3 Basic manufacturing process of light-emitting

create white light. Green, blue, and red LEDs could

Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

fabrication procedures by using electron cyclotron

History and Applications

Due to their superior intrinsic properties such as a

and others will be 44%, 20%, 12%, 12%, and 12%,

32 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

by Nakamura (1991a, 1991b, 1993; Yam and Hassan,

6.02.2 Quality of Epitaxial Layer

In addition, the GaN quality could be improved with

Nucleation and Buffer Layer

In order to reduce the dislocation density, it has been

Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

10-pair GaN/SiN buffer layers. For comparison, the

fabricated devices were measured at room temperature by an HP4156 semiconductor parameter

34 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

were 1.5 104 and 2.5 106 A, respectively, at

Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

epitec WD 7.3 mm 15.0 kV 9.0 k

epitec WD 5.6 mm15.0 kV 9.0 k

XRD intensity (a.u.)

GaN/SiN (x10) buffer

Figure 7 X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra of the two

GaN/SiN nucleation layers could effectively reduce

Epitaxial Lateral Growth

Because of the large differences in lattice constant and

Figure 8 Schematic diagram of two-step epitaxial lateral

first patterned by lithography and etching, followed by

36 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

growth, flow rates of TMGa and NH3 were controlled

around 1.6 107 cm2 for the etched sample and

6.02.3 Internal Quantum Efficiency

NRC-IMS 3.0 kV 11.0 mm 3.00 k SE(L)

Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

Figure 11 Plan-view scanning electron microscope

The moderate concentration of Si also reduced the

38 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

6.02.3.1 Charge Asymmetric Resonant

Normal MQW LED

Figure 14 IV characteristics of charge asymmetric

LEDs with the 10-, 20-, and 40-nm-thick electron

significant and hence the recombination efficiency of

Figure 13 Band diagram of the InGaN/GaN charge

Figure 15 Luminous intensity at a forward current of

Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

Figure 16 IV characteristics of the charge asymmetric

measured at 20 mA of the CART LED (3.2 V) is also

40 Nitride-Based LEDs and Superluminescent LEDs

of the CART LED is around 525 nm with a full width

In general, InGaN/GaN MQW structures are grown