LIGHT EMITTING DIODES

1. INTRODUCTION
Light emitting diodes are a typical pn-junction device used under a forward bias. The
basic operating mechanisms are based on the electrical and optical properties of pn-junctions
and of semiconductor materials. Depending on the semiconductor material used in the light
emitting layer (active layer), the wavelength of the emitted light can be anywhere within the
range from visible to infrared. Most commercially available LEDs are made from III-V
compound semiconductors. Some II-V compound semiconductors such as ZnS and ZnSe are
used in a few LEDs emitting visible light, though these materials are not used frequently
because of the difficulty of pn-junction formation.
LEDs have been widely used in various kinds of equipment and systems. LEDs
composed of combination of InGaAsP and InP cover the wavelengths from 1300 to 1550 nm
band and are the ones usually used in optical fiber communication systems. A combination
of GaAs and AlGaAs or a combination of different compositions of AlGaAs has been used to
make LEDs emitting in the 780 to 900 nm band, and those LEDs have been used in optical
fiber communications systems, data links, remote controllers, and so forth. For display and
indicator applications, LEDs emitting from blue to red light are usually applied.
In fiber optics communications, LEDs are used for low cost, high reliability sources
typically operating with grade index multimode fibers at data rates up to 622Mp/s. For short
fiber lengths they can be used with step index fibers. The emission wavelength will be at the
band gap of active regions in the LEDs; different alloys and materials have different band
gaps. For medium range distances up to ~10 km (limited by modal dispersion) LEDs of
InxGayAs1-xP1-y grown on InP and operating at lambda 1.3 micrometer offer low cost high
reliability transmitters. For short distances up to 2 km, GaAs LEDs operating at lambda 850
nanometers are used.

2. TECHNOLOGY
As in a normal diode LED consists of a chip of semi conductor material doped with
impurities to create pn junction.As in other words current flows easily from p side, or anode,
to n side, or cathode, but not in the reverse direction. Charge carriers electrons and holes flow
into the junction from electrodes with different voltages. When an electron meets hole, it falls
into a lower energy level, and releases energy in the form of photon.
The wavelength of the light emitted and therefore its color depends on the band gap
energy of the material forming the pn junction. In silicon or germanium diodes, the electrons
and holes recombine by a non radioactive transition which produces no optical emission,
because these are indirect band gap materials. The materials used in LEDs have a direct band
gap energies corresponding to near infrared, visible, or near ultraviolet light.
LED development began with infrared and red devices made with gallium arsenide.
Advances in material science have made possible the production of devices with ever shorter
wavelengths, producing light in variety of colors.
 LEDs are usually built on n type substrate, with an electrode attached to the p type
layer deposited on its surface. P type substrates, while less common, occur as well. Many
commercial LEDs, especially GaN/InGaN, also use sapphire substrate.
Most materials used for LED production have very high refractive indices. This
means that much light will be reflected back into the material at the material/air surface
interface. Therefore Light extraction in LEDs is an important aspect of LED production,
subject to much research and development.

3. LED STRUCTURES
There are five major types of LED structure and although two have found extensive
use in optical fiber communications a third is becoming of interest.

3.1 PLANER LED

The planer LED is the simplest of the structures that are available and fabricated by
either the liquid or vapour phase epitaxial processes over the whole surface of a GaAs
substrate. This involves a p type diffusion into n type substrate in order to create the junction
shown in the figure, Forward current flow through the junction gives Lambertian spontaneous
and the device emits light from all surfaces. However, only a limited amount of light escapes
the structure due to total internal reflection, and therefore the radiance is low.
FIGURE: STRUCTURE OF PLANER LED

3.2 DOME LED

The structure of a dome LED is shown in the figure. A hemisphere of n type GaAs is
formed around a diffused p type region. The diameter of the dome is chosen to maximize the
amount of internal emission reaching the surface within the critical angle of the GaAs-air
interface. Hence this device has higher external power efficiency than the planer LED.
However, the geometry of the structure is such that the dome must be far larger than the
active recombination area, which gives a greater effective emission area and thus reduces the
radiance.

FIGURE: STRUCTURE OF DOME LED

 The planer and the dome LEDs, find more application as cheap plastic encapsulated
visible devices for use in such areas as intruder alarms, TV channel changes and industrial
counting.

3.3 EDGE EMITTER LED

Another basic high radiance structure currently used in optical fiber communications
is the edge emitter LED. The device has a similar geometry to a conventional contact stripe
injection laser.
3.3.1 DIODE STRUCTURE
The diodes were deposited on (100)-oriented Si-doped (~1 X 1018 cm-3) GaAs
substrates by a thin-solution liquid phase epitaxial technique described previously. A growth
temperature between 800 and 860°C and a cooling rate of 0.75◦C/min were employed.

The diode consists of a symmetrical double heterojunction. I all five layers are grown:
a Te doped (n~ 1 X 1018 cm-3 ), a GaAs substrate layer, an Sn doped Al0.45Ga0.55As layer ( n~
1 X 1017 cm-3 ) , an undoped active region of either GaAs or Alo.1Ga0.9As, a p type
Al0.45Ga0.55As layer doped with Ge with a density of ~ 5 X 1017 cm-3 and finally GaAs layer
doped with Ge to a density of 1 X 1019 cm-3. All the layers except the active region are 3-4
micrometers thick. The active region is about 0.55 micrometers thick.

3.3.2 DIODE CHARACTERISTICS

Far field distributions were measured from the optical system. The system has a
resolution of 1˚ and signal to noise ratio greater than 20 dB. To prevent scattering from light
emitted from the sides and back of these edge-emitting LED's, black wax was applied to
these surfaces before measurement. The radiated beams are characterized by two parameters,
the angular beam width at the half-maximum point in the direction perpendicular to the
junction plane, θT, and the beam width in the plane of the junction, θ‖‖.

3.3.3 POWER OUTPUT AND RADIANCE

Because in these new diodes the light output is directed toward the emitting facet in
the plane perpendicular to the junction, more of the internally generated light is able to be
externally extracted than from diodes with the usual thicker active region. Thus, these new
devices have relatively high emission quantum efficiency, ~ 1% percent from a single
emitting edge. The nonlinear behavior of this diode near the origin is due to leakage in the
metal reflective coating, but in general these diodes exhibit linear output versus diode
characteristics. The deviation from linearity at the higher drive currents is due to the onset of
lasing. Because of the high radiance of this source large amounts of power can be coupled
into small-diameter low-NA fibers, with relatively high coupling efficiency.
3.4 SURFACE EMITTING LED

A method for obtaining high radiance is to restrict the emission to a small active
region within the device. The technique pioneered by Burrus and Dawson with homostructure
devices was to use an etched well in a GaAs substrate in order to prevent heavy absorption of
the emitted radiation, and physically to accommodate the filter. These structures have low
thermal impedance in the active region allowing high current densities and giving high
radiance emission into the optical fiber. Furthermore, considerable advantage may be
obtained by employing DH structures giving increased efficiency from electrical and optical
confinement as well as less absorption of the emitted radiation. This type of surface LED is
now widely employed within optical fiber communication.

The structure of a high radiance etched well DH surface emitter for 0.8 to 0.9
micrometer is shown in the figure. The internal absorption of in the device is very low due to
the larger band gap confining layers, and the reflection coefficient at the back crystal face is
high giving good forward radiance. The emission from the active layer is essentially
isotropic, although the external emission distribution may be considered Lambertian with a
beam width of 120 ̊ due to refraction from high to low refractive index at the GaAs fiber
interface. The power coupled depends on many factors including the alignment between the
emission area and the fiber, the SLED pattern and the medium between the emitting area and
the fiber.

3.5 SUPERLUMINESCENT DIODES

Super luminescence occurs when the spontaneous emissions of an ELED experience gain due
to higher injected currents and reflections from facets. Super luminescent diodes (SLDs) are
differentiated from both conventional LEDs and LDs. Although the output is not fully
coherent, SLDs emit light that consists of amplified spontaneous emissions. The spectral
width and beam angle of SLDs are narrower than that of conventional LEDs and wider than

Contact 50
micrometer
diameter PMetallization
+
GaAs
SiO2 p-GaAs
p-AlGaAs
Primary light emitting region
that of LDs. An SLD is, in essence, a combination of a laser and an ELED. SLDs are similar
in geometry to lasers but have no built-in optical feedback mechanism required by laser
diodes for stimulated emission to achieve lasing. SLDs have structural features similar to
those of ELEDs that suppress the lasing action by reducing the reflectivity of the facets.
SLDs are essentially highly optimized ELEDs.While SLDs operate like ELEDs at low
current levels, their output power increases super linearly and the spectral width narrows at
high currents. Optical gain resulting from the higher injection currents causes the super linear
power increase and narrowing of the spectral width.

Stripe metallic
contact

SiO2

Sn-Ni contact Incoherent

output beam

FIGURE: AlGaAs contract stripe SLD

contact
4. PHOSPHOR BASED LED
This method involves coating an LED of one color (mostly blue LED made of InGaN)
with phosphor of different colors to form white light; the resultant LEDs are called phosphor-
based white LEDs. A fraction of the blue light undergoes the Stokes shift being transformed
from shorter wavelengths to longer. Depending on the color of the original LED, phosphors
of different colors can be employed. If several phosphor layers of distinct colors are applied,
the emitted spectrum is broadened, effectively raising the color rendering index (CRI) value
of a given LED.

Phosphor based LEDs have a lower efficiency than normal LEDs due to the heat loss
from the Stokes shift and also other phosphor-related degradation issues. However, the
phosphor method is still the most popular method for making high intensity white LEDs. The
design and production of a light source or light fixture using a monochrome emitter with
phosphor conversion is simpler and cheaper than a complex RGB system, and the majority of
high intensity white LEDs presently on the market are manufactured using phosphor light
conversion. The greatest barrier to high efficiency is the seemingly unavoidable Stokes
energy loss. However, much effort is being spent on optimizing these devices to higher light
output and higher operation temperatures. For instance, the efficiency can be raised by
adapting better package design or by using a more suitable type of phosphor. Philips
Lumileds' patented conformal coating process addresses the issue of varying phosphor
thickness, giving the white LEDs a more homogeneous white light. With development
ongoing, the efficiency of phosphor based LEDs generally rises with each new product
announcement.

The phosphor based white LEDs encapsulate InGaN blue LEDs inside phosphor
coated epoxy. A common yellow phosphor material is cerium-doped yttrium aluminium
garnet (Ce3+:YAG).White LEDs can also be made by coating near ultraviolet (NUV)
emitting LEDs with a mixture of high efficiency europium-based red and blue emitting
phosphors plus green emitting copper and aluminium doped zinc sulfide (ZnS:Cu, Al). This
is a method analogous to the way fluorescent lamps work. This method is less efficient than
the blue LED with YAG: Ce phosphor, as the Stokes shift is larger, so more energy is
converted to heat, but yields light with better spectral characteristics, which render color
better. Due to the higher radioactive output of the ultraviolet LEDs than of the blue ones, both
methods offer comparable brightness. A concern is that UV light may leak from a
malfunctioning light source and cause harm to human eyes or skin.

5. ORGANIC LEDs
An organic light emitting diode (OLED) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which
the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compounds which emit light in
response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor material is situated
between two electrodes. Generally, at least one of these electrodes is transparent.
. An OLED display functions without a backlight. Thus, it can display deep black
levels and can also be thinner and lighter than established liquid crystal displays. Similarly, in
low ambient light conditions such as dark rooms, an OLED screen can achieve a
higher contrast ratio than an LCD screen using either cold cathode fluorescent lamps or the
more recently developed LED backlight.
There are two main families of OLEDs: those based upon small molecules and those
employing polymers. Adding mobile ions to an OLED creates a Light-emitting
Electrochemical Cell or LEC, which has a slightly different mode of operation.
OLED displays can use either passive-matrix (PMOLED) or active-matrix addressing
schemes. Active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLED) require a thin-film transistor backplane to
switch each individual pixel on or off, and can make higher resolution and larger size
displays possible.
5.1 DEVICE ARCHITECTURE

Bottom or top emission: Bottom emission devices use a transparent or semi-transparent

bottom electrode to get the light through a transparent substrate. Top emission devices use a
transparent or semi-transparent top electrode emitting light directly. Top-emitting OLEDs are
better suited for active-matrix applications as they can be more easily integrated with a non-
transparent transistor backplane.

Transparent OLEDs use transparent or semi-transparent contacts on both sides of the device
to create displays that can be made to be both top and bottom emitting (transparent). TOLEDs
can greatly improve contrast, making it much easier to view displays in bright sunlight. This
technology can be used in Head-up displays, smart windows or augmented
reality applications. Nova led’s OLED panel presented in Finetech Japan 2010 boasts a
transparency of 60-70%.

Stacked OLEDs use a pixel architecture that stacks the red, green, and blue sub-pixels on top
of one another instead of next to one another, leading to substantial increase in gamut and
color depth, and greatly reducing pixel gap. Currently, other display technologies have the
RGB (and RGBW) pixels mapped next to each other decreasing potential resolution.

Inverted OLED: In contrast to a conventional OLED, in which the anode is placed on the
substrate, an Inverted OLED uses a bottom cathode that can be connected to the drain end of
an n-channel TFT especially for the low cost amorphous silicon TFT backplane useful in the
manufacturing of AMOLED displays.

6. MATERIAL SYSTEMS

6.1 THE GaAa1-xPx SYSTEM

The most widely used alloy for LEDs is the ternary GaAs1-xPx system, including its
two binary components GaAs and GaP. The system is best described by the composition
parameter x. For x=0 we have GaAs and for x=1 we have GaP. For x≤ 0.4 we have direct
band gap. GaAs was developed in the early 1960s as an infrared emitter with a wavelength of
910 nm and an efficiency of 1 percent. The emitter was soon followed by a silicon based
variety. The resulting efficiency increased substantially, and in the range of 5-10 percent
depending on the configuration. However the recombination process is very slow resulting in
rise and fall times. One other drawback is caused by the low absorption coefficient of Si
detectors at wavelength 940 nm.

The x=0.3 alloy with wavelength of 700nm became important in the mid 1970s as the
light source in applications using integrated photo detectors. It has 3 to 5 times the quantum
efficiency of the x=0.4 alloy but has a lower luminous efficiency because of much reduced
eye sensitivity at wavelength 700 nm.

Three nitrogen doped ternary alloys of GaAsP are commercially very important for
red, orange and yellow. The red source with x=0.65 has an efficiency in the range of 2 to 3
Im/A. With increasing band gap or decreasing wavelength, the drop in quantum efficiency is
compensated by increase in eye sensitivity, resulting in a practical wavelength independent
luminous efficiency for the range of 635 to 585 nm.

ZnO doped GaP is an interesting material. The quantum efficiency of such chips is
relatively high, around 3 percent. However the line width is quite broad. The quantum
efficiency peaks at 700 nm but the luminous efficiency peaks at 640 nm. In other words most
of the photons are emitted at wavelengths with low eye sensitivity. Another problem of GaP:
ZnO is saturation. The deep ZnO electron trap causes very slow excitation recombination.

6.2 THE AlxGa1-xAs SYSTEM

The AlxGa1-xAs material system as a direct band gap for 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.38. This system as
one very big significant advantage over GaAsP system, the entire alloy range from x= 0 to
x=1 can be lattice matched to GaAs. In other words, every alloy composition can be directly
grown on any other alloy composition without the need of transition layers. This feature
allows the growth of very abrupt hetero-junctions, i.e., abrupt transitions in compositions and
band gap. These hetero-junctions add one important property not available in GaAsP system:
carrier contaminant. Carrier contaminant reduces the movement of injected carriers in a
direction perpendicular to the junction. Thus carrier density can be increased beyond the
diffusion limited levels. This results in increased internal quantum efficiency and higher
speed. Another benefit is reduced absorption and improved extraction efficiency.

Of practical significance are two compositions: x = 0.06 and x = 0.38. Both

compositions exist in single and double hetero-junctions variations. The double hetero-
junctions usually have 1.5 to 2 times advantage in speed. Chips with transparent substrate
have an additional efficiency improvement of 1.5 to 3 times again, depending on layer
thickness and contact area.

The best comprise for efficiency and speed is the x = 0.06 alloy as a double hetero-
structure. Depending on layer thickness, substrate, and contact area, these devices have
efficiencies of 5 to 20 percent. This alloy is becoming the workhouse for all infrared
applications demanding power and speed.

The x = 0.38 alloy is optimized for applications in visible spectrum. The highest
product of quantum efficiency and eye response is achieved at x = 0.38 and lambda 650 nm.
The single hetero-structure on absorbing substrate has an efficiency of around 4 Im/A. The
equivalent double hetero-structure is in the 6 to 8 Im/A range. The major application for these
red LEDs is the light flux intensive applications, such as message panels and automotive
spotlights. A variation optimized for speed is widely used for optical communications using
plastic fiber.

6.3 THE AlInGaP SYSTEM

The AlInGaP system has most of the advantages of the AlGaAs system with
additional advantage that it has a higher energy direct energy gap of 2.3 eV that corresponds
to green emission at 540 nm. Various AlInGaP device structures have been grown. A simple
DH structure with an AlInGaP active layer surrounded by higher band gap AlInGaP
confining layers has been effective for injection lasers, but has not produced efficient surface
emitting LEDs.
 AlInGaP device with 45 micrometer thick GaP window layers have achieved external
quantum efficiency exceeding 5 percent in the red and yellow regions of the emission
spectrum. This is more than twice as bright as devices that have thinner AlGaAs window
layers. Green emitting AlInGaP devices have also been grown which are much brighter than
the conventional GaP and GaP: N green emitters. The quantum efficiency of AlInGaP is also
better than all the other technologies except for the highest performance AlGaAs devices
operating at 650 nm. Because of the eye sensitivity variations, the 620 nm (red/orange)
AlInGaP devices have much higher luminous efficiency than 650 nm AlGaAs LEDs.

7. COUPLING FROM LEDs INTO FIBER

The coupling efficiency can be increased in a variety of ways. The LED can be
encapsulated in materials such as plastic or epoxy, with direct attachment to a focusing lens.
Then the output cone angle will depend on the design of this encapsulating lens; the finite
size of the emitting aperture and resulting aberrations will be the limiting consideration. In
general, the user must know both the area of the emitting aperture and the angular divergence
in order to optimize coupling efficiency into a fiber. Typical commercially available LEDs at
850 nm for fiber optic applications have external half-angles of ~25 ̊ without a lens and 10 ̊
with a lens, suitable for butt-coupling to multimode fiber.

Additional improvement can be achieved by lensing the pigtailed fiber to increase its
acceptance angle. An alternative is to place a micro-lens between the LED and the fiber.
Perhaps the most effective geometry for capturing light is the integrated domed surface
fabricated directly on the back side of an InP LED. Because the refractive index of
encapsulating plastic is < 1.5, compared to 3.3 of the semi-conductor, only a semiconductor
dome can entirely eliminate total internal reflection. Integrated semiconductor domes require
advanced semi conductor fabrication technology, but have been proven effective. In GaAs
diodes the substrate is absorptive, but etching a well and inserting a fiber can serve to collect
backside emission. For any of these geometries, improvement in efficiency of as much as a
factor of two can be obtained if a mirror is provided to reflect backward-emitted light
forward. This mirror can be either metal or a dielectric stack at the air-semiconductor
interface, or it can be a DBR mirror grown within the semiconductor structure.

Current must be confined to the surface area of emission, which is typically 25 to 75

µm in diameter. This is done by constructing the flow of injection current by mesa etching or
by using an oxide-defined electrode. Re-growth using npn blocking layers or semi-insulating
material in the surrounding areas has the advantage of reducing thermal heating.

Recently, improved S-LED performance has been obtained by using resonant cavities
to reduce the line-width and increase the bandwidth that can transmitted through fibers. These
devices have integral mirrors grown above and below the active region that serve to resonate
the spontaneous emission.
FIGURE: Typical geometries for coupling from LEDs into fiber.
(a) Hemisphere lens attached with encapsulating plastic
(b) Lensed fiber tip
(c) Micro-lens aligned through use of an etched well
(d) Spherical semiconductor surface formed on the substrate side of the LED

8. APPLICATIONS OF LEDs