Near-UV LEDs emitting at around 400 nm can be used e.g. as pump light source in tri-phosphor RGB white luminescence-conversion LEDs with high color rendering.¹ Although non-thermal roll-over decreases towards shorter emission wavelengths in GaInN-based LEDs, this effect still limits the efficiency of 400 nm emitting LEDs at current densities above 50 A/cm². One way to overcome non-thermal roll-over is to combine a GaInN wide-well active region with the growth on low dislocation density (DD) substrates. Single-well LEDs with GaInN layer widths between 3 nm and 18 nm were grown (a) directly on sapphire substrates with a resulting DD of 10⁹ cm^-2, (b) on low DD GaN templates on sapphire (DD of 10⁸ cm^-2), and (c) on freestanding GaN substrates (FS-GaN, DD of 4×107 cm^-2). At low current densities (pulsed mode operation) the LEDs with a 3 nm GaInN QW active region showed the highest efficiency, irrespective of the substrate. However, the electroluminescence (EL) efficiency peaks at around 50 A/cm² and shows a clear non-thermal roll-over towards higher current densities. The efficiency of LEDs with well widths >3 nm grown on sapphire decreases with increasing well width over the whole range of current densities (≤300 A/cm²). However, when grown on low DD GaN templates or FS-GaN, the efficiency of the LEDs with 11 and 18 nm wide GaInN layers surpasses that of the conventional LEDs (well widths ≤6 nm) for current densities ≥250 A/cm², yielding the highest EL efficiency of all LED-structures.

Date Published: 3 February 2009
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7231, Light-Emitting Diodes: Materials, Devices, and Applications for Solid State Lighting XIII, 72310K (3 February 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.819404

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7231:
Light-Emitting Diodes: Materials, Devices, and Applications for Solid State Lighting XIII
Klaus P. Streubel; Heonsu Jeon; Li-Wei Tu, Editor(s)