IEEE ELECTRON DEVICE LETTERS, VOL. 34, NO.

8, AUGUST 2013

1029

InGaN/GaN Vertical Light-Emitting Diodes

With Diamondlike Carbon/Titanium
Heat-Spreading Layers
Pai Yang Tsai, Hou Kuei Huang, Chien-Min Sung, Ming Chi Kan, and Yeong Her Wang, Member, IEEE

Abstract Vertical light-emitting diodes (VLEDs) with

diamondlike carbon/titanium (DLC/Ti) heat-spreading layers
on silicon (Si) substrates are investigated. Good thermal
conductivity coupled with a thermal expansion coefficient
similar to that of gallium nitride enables DLC/Ti to enhance
heat dissipation via the Si substrate for Si-bonded VLEDs. The
relative light intensity of VLEDs with DLC/Ti operating at
1 A is 10% greater than that of VLEDs without DLC/Ti. The
output power droop can be further improved. A slight red shift
of 0.5 nm occurs when the injection current is increased from
0.7 to 1 A. VLEDs with DLC/Ti also have lower and more
uniform surface temperatures than VLEDs without DLC/Ti.
The measured thermal resistance of VLEDs with and without
DLC/Ti is 0.63 and 1.51 K/W at an injection current of 350 mA,
respectively. This observation shows that the proposed DLC/Ti
heat-spreading layer facilitates efficient thermal management in
VLEDs.
Index
Terms Diamondlike
carbon
nitride (GaN), light-emitting diode (LED).

(DLC),

gallium

I. I NTRODUCTION

III

-NITRIDES
are
commonly
employed
in
semiconductor optoelectronic applications [1][4].
High-brightness gallium nitride (GaN)-based light-emitting
diodes (LEDs) are successfully applied to handset keypads,
LCD backlighting, and full-color outdoor displays. Further
advances in LED technology would increase the application
of GaN-based LEDs in lighting, resulting in substantial energy
savings owing to the higher efficiency of LEDs compared
with incandescent bulbs [1][4]. Available LEDs are based
either on sapphire or silicon carbide (SiC). SiC substrates are,
however, expensive at present. LED performance continues
to suffer from many limitations such as efficiency droop in
high injection current level and poor thermal conductivity
of the sapphire substrate. Therefore, sapphire should be
replaced with a material substrate that possesses high
Manuscript received May 28, 2013; accepted May 30, 2013. Date of
publication June 26, 2013; date of current version July 22, 2013. This work
was supported in part by the National Science Council of Taiwan under
Contracts NSC 95-2221-E-006- 428-MY3, NSC101-2221-E-006-141-MY3,
100CC02, and 100S182. The review of this letter was arranged by Editor
C. Jagadish.
P. Y. Tsai, H. K. Huang, and Y. H. Wang are with the Institute of Microelectronics, Department of Electrical Engineering, Advanced Optoelectronic
Technology Center, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan
(e-mail: yhw@ee.ncku.edu.tw).
C. M. Sung and M. C. Kan are with the Department of DLC Technology,
Ritedia, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LED.2013.2266670

Fig. 1.

CTE and thermal conductivity of different materials.

thermal and electrical conductivities, allowing heat to be

efficiently dissipated through the metal layer region [5].
Wong et al. [6] reported the use of laser lift-off with bonded
Si substrates to fabricate vertical LEDs (VLEDs). Permanent
transfer substrate technology is important in the development
of high-brightness VLEDs [7]. The heat capability of
VLEDs can be further improved using substrates with high
thermal conductivity. These substrates offer advantages
such as excellent thermal dissipation and good current
spreading [8]. Diamondlike carbon (DLC) has a very good
thermal conductivity (600 W/mK) that is 1.5 times higher
than that of copper and a coefficient of thermal expansion
(CTE) value similar to that of GaN, closer to that of Si [9],
as shown in Fig. 1. DLC can therefore act as an effective
heat dissipation enhancer, particularly for the improvement
of high-power VLED performance. For the DLC film thicker
than 350 nm, it is, however, easy to crack during the laser
lift-off process. To avoid the cracking and to reduce the
electrical resistance ( M) of DLC, titanium (Ti) is added
to offer the electrical conductivity, reduce the thin film stress,
and enhance the adhesion. DLC/Ti multilayer structure is then
used in this letter as a heat-spreading layer between the mirror
layer and Si substrate. VLEDs with DLC/Ti (DLC-VLED)
can outperform those without DLC/Ti (non-DLC-VLED).
Therefore, a DLC/Ti multilayer structure can improve thermal
management and light-efficiency droop in the high injection
current domain.
II. E XPERIMENT
A schematic view of the LED cross section is shown in
Fig. 2(a). The GaN LED epilayers are grown via metalorganic
chemical vapor deposition onto (0001) sapphire substrates.
The LED structure consists of a 200-nm-thick GaN buffer

0741-3106/$31.00 2013 IEEE

1030

IEEE ELECTRON DEVICE LETTERS, VOL. 34, NO. 8, AUGUST 2013

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. (a) Schematic view of the VLED with DLC/Ti heat-spreading layer.
(b) Cross-sectional DLC/Ti heat-spreading multilayer SEM image for the
VLED.

layer, a 2-m-thick undoped GaN layer, a 2-m-thick highly

conductive n-type GaN layer, an InGaNGaN multiple quantum well active layer, and a 0.5-m-thick p-type GaN layer.
A 1 1-mm2 isolation structure is fabricated with an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etcher for electrical isolation. The
Ni/Ag/Ti/Au metals are deposited on the p-GaN film as the
ohmic contact and reflective mirror formed by electron beam
(E-beam) evaporation. A SiO2 film is used to passivate the
sidewall of the LED device via plasma-enhanced chemical
vapor deposition. The DLC/Ti materials are used as a heatspreading layer via physical vapor deposition after passivation.
The deposition rate of DLC film is 1.5 /s. The thickness of
Ti layer > 200 nm can increase the adhesion and electrical
conductivity of the DLC/Ti heat-spreading layer. To have
heat dissipation efficiently, the thickness of DLC > 1 m is
required. In addition, to consider the metal lift-off process
limitation, five pairs of DLC/Ti (300/220 nm) heat-spreading
multilayers are employed. The measured CTE of DLC/Ti is
increased to 8 PPM/ .
A scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of the
DLC/Ti multilayer cross section is shown in Fig. 2(b).
Ti/Ni/Au is used as the bonding material layer on the GaN
epiwafer and Si substrate through E-beam. Bonding is performed by heating at 250 C for 40 min at a bonding pressure
of 150 kgf/cm2 (1472 N/cm2 ). A KrF excimer laser with a
248-nm wavelength is irradiated from the back surface to
remove the sapphire substrate. The substrate is immediately
lifted off from the u-GaN side upon laser irradiation. The
remaining GaN surface is dipped into an HCl solution (HCl:DI
= 1:1) and rinsed in deionized water to remove the remaining
Ga on the undoped GaN surface. The undoped GaN layer
is removed from the n-GaN layer with ICP. The Ti/Al/Ti/Au
metals are deposited through E-beam evaporation onto the
n-GaN epilayer used as the n-electrode. Finally, a KOH
solution is prepared to roughen the n-GaN surface and increase
light extraction [10]. Surface temperature is measured with an
Avio TVS-500EX infrared thermometer at a stable condition
when the decrease in forward voltage is < 0.01 V/min. Thermal
resistance is measured from the chip to the Al submount with
a T3Ster system.
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
The light output power, injection current, and forward voltage (LI V ) characteristics of DLC-VLED and

Fig. 3.

LI V characteristics of DLC-VLED and non-DLC-VLED.

Fig. 4. Normalized output power intensity at 350-mA injection current for

DLC-VLED and non-DLC-VLED as a function of injection current.

non-DLC-VLED are compared in Fig. 3. At 350 mA, the

forward voltages (VF ) of DLC-VLED and non-DLC-VLED
are 3.07 and 3.04 V, respectively. The corresponding light
output power of DLC-VLED and non-DLC-VLED are 402.1
and 375.7 mW, respectively. The effects of the DLC/Ti heatspreading layer on the electrical and optical properties of the
VLED are significant based on the forward voltage and light
output power results at an injection current level of 350 mA.
The corresponding light output power of DLC-VLED and nonDLC-VLED are 912 and 816 mW at an injection current of
1 A, respectively.
The normalized light output power intensity at an injection
current of 350 mA for DLC-VLED and non-DLC-VLED as a
function of injection current is shown in Fig. 4. Both VLEDs
behave similarly at injection currents < 700 mA. The role
of DLC/Ti becomes highly significant at injection currents
> 700 mA. At an injection current of 700 mA, the normalized
output power intensity for DLC-VLED is 1.78 times, whereas
that of non-DLC-VLED is 1.75 times. The corresponding
normalized output power intensity at 1000 mA is 2.36 times
for DLC-VLED and 2.11 times for non-DLC-VLED. More
than 10% improvement in output power intensity is observed,
which means that output power droop can be further improved
by employing DLC/Ti heat-spreading layers at high injection
currents.
A VLED with a heat-spreading DLC/Ti multilayer decreases
the wavelength shift when injection current is increased. The
wavelength shifts of DLC-VLED and non-DLC-VLED at
various injection currents are shown in Fig. 5. The difference
in emitted wavelength may be attributed to epilayer variation,
which occurs even though the epilayers are grown from the

TSAI et al.: InGaN/GaN VLEDs WITH DLC/Ti HEAT-SPREADING LAYERS

Fig. 5. Wavelength shift of DLC-VLED and non-DLC-VLED as a function

of injection current.

1031

DLC-VLED exhibits a more uniform temperature variation

than non-DLC-VLED because the latter experiences more heat
crowding than the former. The thermal properties of Ti may
be a concern as compared with Au or DLC layer. The thermal
paths in DLC/Ti layer ( 2 m thick) can then be considered
as in parallel instead of a series case. In addition to the thermal
conduction, a part of heat is also dissipated by radiation in
DLC layer [12]. The heat dissipation efficiency of DLC-VLED
is higher than that of non-DLC-VLED, resulting in the lower
thermal resistance, e.g., 0.63 and 1.51 K/W at injection current
of 350 mA, respectively. Therefore, the proposed DLC/Ti
heat-spreading layer facilitates efficient thermal management
because of its low droop in light output power at high injection
currents.
IV. C ONCLUSION

Fig. 6. Temperature distribution in the chip region of DLC-VLED. (a) NonDLC-VLED. (b) Injection currents of 350 mA. DLC-VLED. (c) Non-DLCVLED. (d) Injection currents of 1000 mA.

The use of DLC/Ti heat-spreading layers on VLEDs to

improve light-efficiency droop and emitted wavelength shift
was demonstrated. The heat dissipation of GaN VLEDs was
effectively enhanced at high injection currents, resulting in
more uniform temperature distribution, higher light output,
lower thermal resistance, and less wavelength shift as compared with those without using DLC/Ti spreading layers.
More stable optical and electrical properties for DLC-VLEDs
at high injection currents can be achieved. With the excellent performance of DLC-VLED, the chip size of DLCVLED could be smaller than that of non-DLC-VLED while
offering the same performance, particularly at high injection
currents.

same batch. A blue shift is observed in the two types of

VLEDs at injection currents < 700 mA because the devices
exhibit good thermal dissipation on Al submounts; this thermal
dissipation results from the band-filling effects of the localized
energy states for the blue shift [11]. The heat generated in the
epilayers cannot be dissipated well when the injection current
> 700 mA; the energy bandgap then shrinks and shifts to red.
The wavelength of non-DLC-VLED exhibits an intense red
shift from 453 to 456 nm. The wavelength of DLC-VLED
exhibits a slight, stable red shift at 0.5 nm. This result
shows that DLC/Ti allows excellent heat dissipation.
The surface temperature distributions on the Al submount
for DLC-VLED and non-DLC-VLED at injection currents
of 350 and 1000 mA, respectively, are shown in Fig. 6.
The measured temperatures at injection currents of 350 and
1000 mA range from 38.72 C to 40.12 C [Fig. 6(a)] and
62.48 C to 70.02 C [Fig. 6(b)], respectively, for DLC-VLED.
The measured temperatures at the same injection currents
range from 40.98 C to 42.84 C [Fig. 6(c)] and 72.74 C
to 83.95 C [Fig. 6(d)] for non-DLC-VLED, respectively.
The temperature variations in DLC-VLED and non-DLCVLED with 1 1-mm2 chip size are 8 C and 11 C,
respectively. The surface temperature of DLC-VLED is lower
than that of non-DLC-VLED by 2 C and 15 C at injection
currents of 350 and 1000 mA, respectively. The excess heat
from the devices operating at high injection currents is dissipated by the DLC/Ti heat-spreading layer and Si substrate.

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