Fabrication of Phosphor-Free III-Nitride Nanowire Light-Emitting Diodes on Metal Substrates for Flexible Photonics

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-30-2017

Abstract

In this paper, we report our study on high-performance III-nitride nanowire light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on copper (Cu) substrates via the substrate-transfer process. Nanowire LED structures were first grown on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. Subsequently, the SOI substrate was removed by combining dry- and wet-etching processes. Compared to conventional nanowire LEDs on Si, the nanowire LEDs on Cu exhibit several advantages, including more efficient thermal management and enhanced light-extraction efficiency (LEE) because of the usage of metal reflectors and highly thermally conductive metal substrates. The LED on Cu, therefore, has stronger photoluminescence, electroluminescence intensities, and better current-voltage characteristics compared to the conventional nanowire LED on Si. Our simulation results further confirm the improved device performance of LEDs on Cu, compared to LEDs on Si. The LEE of the nanowire LED on Cu is nine times higher than that of the LED on Si at the same nanowire radius of 60 nm and spacing of 130 nm. Moreover, by engineering the device-active region, we achieved high-brightness phosphor-free LEDs on Cu with highly stable white-light emission and high color-rendering index of ∼95, showing their promising applications in general lighting, flexible displays, and wearable applications.

Identifier

85048039551 (Scopus)

Publication Title

ACS Omega

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.7b00843

e-ISSN

24701343

First Page

5708

Last Page

5714

Issue

9

Volume

2

Grant

1560131

Fund Ref

National Science Foundation

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