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IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 22, NO. 8, APRIL 15, 2010
I. INTRODUCTION
HORNG et al.: PERFORMANCE OF FC THIN-FILM GaN LEDs WITH AND WITHOUT PATTERNED SAPPHIRES
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Fig. 3. I V characteristic of the C-FC and PSS-FC LEDs before and after
LLO. Inset presents the leakage behavior for these samples.
Fig. 1. Schematic fabrication procedures for the C- and PSS-FC LEDs, where
(a)(c) represent the device structures after the processes of standard FC, substrate removal, and surface roughening, respectively.
Fig. 2. Surface morphologies of the C-FC LED after the processes of (a) substrate removal and (b) surface roughening by a NaOH solution; surface images
of the PSS-FC LED after the processes of (c) substrate removal and (d) surface
roughening. The inset of (b) is the cross section of the C-FC LED.
LED just after the LLO process is still too smooth to enhance
light extraction via scattering of light. With the employment
of chemical etching in the NaOH solution, the surface of the
device becomes roughened; as it will be shown later, the roughened surface remarkably increases output power of the device.
In contrast, the surface morphology of the PSS-FC LED after
the thin-film processes (LLO and roughening) is quite different
from that of the C-FC LED. As shown in Fig. 2(c), the surface
of the PSS-FC LED just after the LLO process has become a
periodically roughened morphology. The flat mesas in Fig. 2(c)
can further be roughened to maximize light extraction by dipping the exposed GaN surface in the NaOH etching solution.
As shown in Fig. 2(d), surface roughening occurs not only on
the top mesa area but also on the bottom surface of the array.
This double surface roughening is expected to result in the best
light extraction efficiency of all the other postprocesses used in
this study.
It is important to evaluate the characteristic of the
C-FC and PSS-FC LEDs before and after LLO, and shown
in Fig. 3. The inset of Fig. 3 presents the leakage behavior
for these samples. It is worth mentioning that the leakage
current for the PSS-FC is larger than the other FC LEDs. Even
though, the leakage current is still in the reasonable range.
Obviously, the electrical properties were almost the same for
these samples. It suggests that the LLO processing does not
damage the LEDs. Fig. 4(a) and (b) compares light output
power versus injection current for the C- and PSS-FC LEDs
before and after the thin-film processes. As shown in Fig. 4,
the C- and PSS-FC LEDs show a power decrement just after
the LLO process. The power decrement reason should not be
the result of LLO-induced process damage because the
curve of the LLO-treated LED is almost the same as that of the
original LED as shown in Fig. 3. The power decrement could
be mainly attributed to reduced escape cone, which is the result
of refractive index ( ) contrast change from the original sap)/GaN (
) interface to air (
)/ GaN
phire (
) interface. The corresponding critical angle is 45 and
(
25 for the light from GaN to sapphire and air, respectively.
To improve the light output, surface roughening is employed
subsequently. As shown in Fig. 4(a), a power enhancement is
observed for the LED with the surface roughening treatment,
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IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 22, NO. 8, APRIL 15, 2010
Fig. 4. Light output power versus injection current for (a) the C-FC LED and
(b) the PSS-FC LED before and after the thin-film processes.
TABLE I
POWER ENHANCEMENT FACTOR (%) AT INJECTION CURRENT OF 350 mA FOR
THE C- AND PSS-FC LEDS. ENHANCEMENT FACTOR IS CALCULATED WITH
RESPECT TO THE LIGHT OUTPUT POWER OF THE AS-FABRICATED C-FC LED
IV. CONCLUSION
Device performance of an FC GaN LED with PSS and
thin-film techniques was compared with that of a conventional
FC LED. It was shown that the power enhancement factor at
an injection current of 350 mA is already up to 62.3% for the
as-fabricated PSS-FC LED without any postprocess, which is
much better than the 36.3% of the C-FC LED with the thin-film
processes. The output power of the PSS-FC LED could further
be increased to 74.4% at the same driven current by subsequent
roughening treatment.
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