GaN Based High Brightness LEDs and U V LEDs

S . P. DenBaars, T. Katona, P. Cantu, A. Hanlon, S. Keller, M. Schmidt, T. Margalith, M. Pattisson, C. Moe, J. Speck, and S. Nakamura
Materials Department, Solid-state Lighting and Display Center University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106 USA

heteroepitaxial AlGaN based LEDs to be grown in compression. An alternative to hulk AIN substrates This talk will summarize the important materials is AIN or high composition AlGaN grown directly and device results in gallium nitride based light on sapphire. It is difficult tn limit the dislocation emitter technology. GaN has emerged as the most density using this approach because the high promising material for high brightness LEDs with sticking coefficient and low surface mobility of AI colors ranging from W, blue, green, and white. compared to Ga causes rapid AlGaN island Recent progress on ultra-violet 0emitting coalescence. This leads to formation of a large LEDs using AlGaN single quantum wells indicates number of edge dislocations at coalescence wavelengths as short as 2 9 2 m are achievable. UV boundaries [I]. A large amount of work currently LEDs are of great interest for solid state white focuses on growing AIN on sapphire via MOCVD lighting due to the high conversion efficiencies of with a low threading dislocation density (TDD) [Ztypical phosphors in the UV specbum. This paper 31. In the absence of low dislocation density will focus on recent progress in improving the transparent substrates, we have grown UV LEDs on several microns of GaN on sapphire reducing the properties of W LEDs. TDD to low to mid IO8 cm2. The effect of TDD on non-radiative recombination in nitride based Introduction emitters is well documented [4-61. Unfortunately, Recently, GaN based LEDs have shown the use of a GaNkapphire substrate causes the remarkable progress for efficient light generation AlGaN based LED to be grown in tension. The spanning the blueigreen through W light spectrum. average composition of the devices grown in these When combining blue or W GaN LED chips with experiments is 17.7%. We have inserted a 300A phosphor eMicient white light generation is now AIN interlayer to relieve the stress and allow for possible. Currently, the efficiency of GaN based crack-kee growth of the UV LED [7-91. In this white HB-LEDs is now 30lumensiwatt in work we have investigated several different growth production and 74lumensiwatt in R&D[I], which conditions for the AIN interlayer and show that the now exceeds that of incandescent lighting and has device performance improves as the long range led to new applications in solid state lighting and order of the AIN interlayer decreases. displays (See figure 1). Using MOCVD we have achieved GaN based LEDs with external quantum Experimental Details efficiencies ranging from 20% to sub 1% as the wavelength is decreased from 4SOnm to 290nm (as The device design is shown schematically in Figure shown in Figure 2). MOCVD growth of InGaN 3. Growth was performed in a vertical close-spaced quantum well structures and the effect of showerhead MOCVD reactor, with growth dislocations are shown to dominate the LED conditions for all layers except the AIN interlayer efficiency. reported elsewhere 191. The growth temperatures of W LEDs have application in solid-state white the AIN interlayer were 700,900, and 1100C. The lighting due to the high conversion efficiencies of AIN grown at 900C was grown both with and typical phosphors in the W spectrum. W LEDs without TMIn flow. The TMAl and TMIn flows are also of interest due to their applications for were 10.9, and 16.1 pnoVmin respectively for all biological and chemical weapons detection and temperatures, with a ViIII ratio of 6896 for the AIN non-line of sight communication. Currently, hulk layer grown with TMIn. A semitransparent PdAu AIN substrates are not available. These substrates (3O.&/SOA) p-contact and TilAVNilAu would provide a low threading dislocation density (IOOA/2000~200A/3000.k) n-contact was (TDD), W transparent substrate allowing Abstract

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deposited followed by a thick TUAu (200Al5000A) probe pad. Spectral measurements were made using a UV-Visible CCD array spectrometer with the light coupled in through an optical fiber. DC LIV testing was done on chip using a HP 4145B parameter analyzer with light detected by a large area W enhanced Si photodiode located 6mm above the wafer.

25 mA and decreases by 25% from it's peak value to the efficiency at 100 mA. Electroluminescence (EL) spectral measurements are shown in figure 4. A sharp peak, 8nm full width half maximum, is observed at 292 nm attributed to emission due to recombination in the quantum wells. There are also broad long wavelength peaks previously observed by other groups [13,14]. It has been observed that the Mg concentration in MOCVD grown films does not reach its terminal value until up to 1000 A after injection of Cp2Mg into the reactor. These UV LEDs have a relatively thin, 1460 A, p-type layer compared to 5000 b, for typical InCaN based visible LEDs to reduce the series resistance

The AlGaN total thickness of 4210 A was chosen because it is approximately the critical thickness that could be achieved before cracking occurred. It should be noted that if the 5000 A n-GaN contact layer is removed from on top of the AIN interlayer, a much thicker device design (up to 1 pm attempted) can be grown without cracking but the device performance degraded. We expect the degradation resulted from a combination of higher n-contact resistance, enhanced current crowding in the n-contact layer resulting in non-unifonn current injection, and an increased TDD in the device. The critical thickness was the same for all four of the AIN interlayer growth conditions. We also expect that for the interlayer grown with TMIn flow, the indium is acting almost solely as a surfactant as the incorporation is low due to the relatively high growth temperatures for indium containing compounds [IO]. Results The tum-on voltage of the LEDs is approximately 3.7 V as is expected for diodes emitting at 334 nm, but there is a significant amount of diode leakage at low currents that can be seen by the absence of output power up to almost 5 mA injection current. The maximum efficiency was 0.8% at 340nm and 20 mA of current. However, as the LED active the layer wavelength is decreased to 290external quantum efficiency drops to 0.01%. We believe the drop in efficiency is related to the increasing non-radiative rate due to either higher defect density or higher piezoelectric induced charge separation. The threading dislocation density was estimated from atomic force microscopy images taken of the surface after the device growth [I I]. The dislocation densities were estimated to be 3.2, 4.3, and 5.2 x IO9 cm.2 for LEDs on AIN interlayers grown at 700 "C, 900 "C, and 900 O with indium doping respectively. This C indicates that the AIN surface morphology influences the dislocation density of the n-GaN grown on top of it, and as the AIN long-range order decreases, the resulting TDD is lower. Under pulsed testing conditions the power saturated at a higher injection current and the maximum output power was up to 9 times greater under pulsed conditions. Self-heating is expected with the relatively low quantum efficiency when compared to commercial InGaN LEDs The quantum efficiency reaches it's maximum value between 20 -

Conclusions

We have demonstrated that although AlGaN based UV LEDs are grown in tension on GaN base layers, an AIN interlayer can be inserted allowing the growth of crack-free devices. Despite the LED being grown on an absorbing epitaxial base layer, we have demonstrated approximately 0.8% external efficiency at 340nm and 0.01% at 290nm, however, much work is needed to improve the performance of deep UV emitting LEDs. Acknowledgements This work was funded by LTC. John Carrano under the DARPA SUVOS program awarded through CREE Inc. and the Solid State Lighting and Display Center at UCSB. References
[I1
CREE press release. (see hap://-w.cree.comR\(ewsincws I75.asp)

[Z] H.M. Wang, 1. P. Zhang. C. Q. Chcn, Q. Farecd, 1. Yang,

M. A. man,~ p p i Phys. ~ e u (USA) 81 (41,604 (znnz). . . 131 Y. Kida, T. Shibata, H. Naoi. H. Miyake, K Himatsu, M.
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T ~ W . Phys. stat. SO]. A. 194 (2). 498 (znnz). ~, H.Marchand, J. P. Ibbetson, P. T.Fini, S. Chiehibu, S. I. Rosner, S. Kcller, S. P. DenBaars, I. S. Speck. U. K. Mishra, Pmseeding9 of the lnfematlonal Symposium On Compound Semiconducton (1999). p. 6 8 1 4 . [ 5 ] S. Nakamura, E l C E Transactions on Electronics E83C (4), 529-535(2000). [6] M.Hansen, P. Fmi, L. Zhao, A. C. Abara, L. A. Colden, J. S. Speck, S. P. DenBaars, Appl. Phys. Lett. (USA) 76 (5), 529-531 (2nnn). [7] M. Iwaya, S. Terao, N. Hayashi, T. Kashima, T. Detchprohm, H.Amano, 1 Akasaki, A. Himno, C. Pemot, . hoceedinm of the Matends Rcsearch SafieW Vol. 595. (znno), p< WI .in.16. 181 1. Han, K E. Waldrip, S. R. Lee, I. 1. Figiel, S. I. Hame, G. A. Petenen, S. M. Myen, Appi. Phys. Lett. (USA) 78 (1),67 (2001). T. Katona, M. C. Schmidt, T. Margalith, C. Mop, H. Tamura, H. Sato, C. Funaoka, R. Underwood, S . Nakamura, J. S. Speck, S. P. DenBaars. Submilled Io Physic0 Sfalu Solidi A . J u n ~ 2003. S. Keller, S. Heikman. 1 Ben-Yaacov, L. Shen, S. P. . DenBaars, U. K. Mishra. Phys. Stat. Sol. A. 188 ( ) Z,
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H. Marchand, J. P. lbbetson, P. T. Fini, P. Kozodoy, S . Keller, S. DeoBaars, J. S . Speck, U. K. Mishra. MRS lntemet 1.Nitride Semi. Res. 3 (3), I (1998). A. Chimis, I. P. Zhang, V. Adivarahan, W. Shuai, J. Sun, M. Shatalov, I. W. Yang, G. Simin, M. A. Khan. Jpn. 1. Appl. Phys. 41 (48) L450-51(2002). T. Nishida. N. Kabayashi, Phys. Stat. Sol. A. 188 (I). 113-6(2001). J. P. Zhang, V. Adivarahan, H. M. W a g , Q. Fareed, E. Kuakstis, A. Chimir, M. Shatalov, I. W. Yang, G. Simin, M. A. Khan, M. Shur, R. Gaska, Jpn. J. Appl. Phyr. 40 L9214 (2001).

GaN.green GaN-white
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Figure 3. SrmcNre of UV LEDs containing high AI allays and 7 QWs.

Figure 1. HBLED luminous efficiency VS. Year

1 (nm)
Figure 4. D e W cmision speccm h m GaN MQW LED ep Figure 2. Extemal Quanrum Effkicncy of GaN devices as a function of wavelength. Comparison of all reported W LEDs indicate a sharp fall off in efficiency h m blue t UV. o

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