Highly Stable White Light Emission from III-Nitride Nanowire LEDs Utilizing Nanostructured Alumina-Doped Mn4+ and Mg2.

In this report, red-emitting alumina nanophosphors doped with Mn4+ and Mg2+ (Al2O3:Mn4+, Mg2+) are synthesized by a hydrothermal method using a Pluronic surfactant. The prepared samples are ceramic-sintered at various temperatures. X-ray diffraction shows that Al2O3:Mn4+, Mg2+ annealed at 500 °C exhibits a cubic γ-Al2O3 phase with the space group Fd3m-227. The tetragonal δ-Al2O3 and rhombohedral α-Al2O3 phase is obtained at 1000 and 1300 °C, respectively. Cube-like nanoparticles in a size of ∼40 nm are observed for the alumina heated at 500-1000 °C. The size and red-emitting intensity of the phosphors remarkably increased with annealed temperature ∼1300 °C. Emission spectra of the phosphors show strong peaks at 678 and 692 nm due to 2 E g → 4 A 2 transitions of the Mn4+ ion, under a light excitation of 460 nm. A strong zero-phonon line (ZPL) emission is observed in the luminescence spectra of δ-Al2O3:Mn4+, Mg2+ at 298 K, whereas a weak one is observed in those of α- and γ-Al2O3:Mn4+, Mg2+. The alumina phosphors exhibited an excellent waterproof ability during 60 days in water and good thermal stability in the range of 77-573 K. A warm-white light-emitting diode (WLED) fabricated using In x Ga1-x N nanowire chips with Al2O3:Mn4+, Mg2+ red-emitting nanophosphors presents a high color rendering index of ∼95.1 and a low correlated color temperature of ∼4998 K. Moreover, the current-voltage characteristic of the nanowire LEDs could be improved using Al2O3:Mn4+, Mg2+ nanophosphors which is attributed to the increased heat dissipation in the nanowire LEDs.

Characteristics of leakage currents in InGaN/AlGaN nanowire-based red microLEDs.

III-nitride nanowire (NW) LEDs have been intensively studied for several emerging applications. However, the performance of these LEDs is still limited due to many factors. A leakage current may cause idle power consumption and affect the reliability and luminescence efficiency of the devices. Hence, it is one of the most important limiting factors from an application point of view. In this context, we have experimentally observed temperature-dependent forward and reverse leakage current-voltage characteristics of InGaN/AlGaN NW-based red microLEDs. The characteristic curves are fitted using different constant parameters such as the space charge term, zero bias current, and the characteristic energy. They are found to have error bars of less than 10%. The extra space charge term is believed to be due to inherent space charges trapped with the NWs and presents at every instance of the operation of the diode. The characteristic energy and ideality factors are compared to the reported values. An Arrhenius plot is used to calculate the thermal activation energy in the high- and low-temperature regions for both bias conditions. Our results show that the voltage-dependent activation energy is found to be about double in the case of the forward bias compared to that of the reverse bias in all voltage ranges. However, in a high voltage regime, the magnitudes of these parameters are almost four and six times greater for the forward and reverse biases, respectively, compared to those in the lower voltage regions. This study presents vital insight into the design and fabrication of high-performance NW-based LEDs.

Low-power multilevel resistive switching inß-Ga2O3based RRAM devices.

In this study, multilevel switching at low-power in Ti/TiN/Ga2O3/Ti/Pt resistive random-access memory (RRAM) devices has been systematically studied. The fabricated RRAM device exhibits an excellent non-overlapping window between set and reset voltages of ∼1.1 V with a maximumRoff/Ronratio of ∼103. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, the multi-bit storage capability of these RRAM devices with a reasonably highRoff/Ronratio is experimentally demonstrated, for the first time, for lower compliance currents at 10µA, 20µA and 50µA. The multi-bit resistive switching behavior of the Ga2O3RRAM device at a low compliance current paves the way for low-power and high-density data storage applications.

High-efficiency InGaN blue LEDs with reduced positive sheet polarization.

The formation of positive sheet polarization charges at the interface of the last quantum barrier (QB) and the conventional p-type electron-blocking layer (EBL) creates significant band bending, leading to severe electron leakage and poor hole injection in III-nitride light-emitting diodes. We report that the positive sheet polarization charges are mitigated by employing a lattice matched AlGaN last QB. Electron leakage is dramatically reduced due to the increased effective conduction band height at the last QB and EBL. Furthermore, it favors hole injection into the active region due to the reduced effective valance band height for EBL.

Impact of a prestrained graded InGaN/GaN interlayer towards enhanced optical characteristics of a multi-quantum well LED based on silicon substrate.

This paper presents alternate pairs of InGaN/GaN prestrained layers with varying indium compositions, which are inserted between the GaN/InGaN MQW active region and the n-GaN layer in a light-emitting diode (LED) nanostructure in order to obtain enhanced optical characteristics. The device is mounted on a silicon substrate followed by a GaN buffer layer that promotes charge injection by minimizing the energy barrier between the electrode and active layers. The designed device attains more than 2.897% enhancement in efficiency when compared with the conventional LED, which is attributed to the reduction of a polarization field within the MQW region. The proposed device with 15% indium composition in the prestrained layer attains a maximum efficiency of 85.21% and a minimized efficiency droop of 3.848% at an injection current of 40 mA, with high luminous power in the output spectral range. The device also shows a minimum blueshift in the spectral range, indicating a decrease in the piezoelectric polarization.

Improving Color Quality of Nanowire White Light-Emitting Diodes with Mn4+ Doped Fluoride Nanosheets.

A two-dimensional nanostructured fluoride red-emitting phosphor with an excellent quantum yield of ~91% is studied for cost-effective and high-color quality nanowire white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs). K2TiF6:Mn4+ phosphors are synthesized via an emulsification method using surfactants as sodium dodecyl sulphonate and oleic acid. The K2TiF6:Mn4+ phosphors in ultra-thin and nanosheet crystals are observed via scanning electron microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The surfactants are found to play a key role in inhibition of KTFM crystal growth process and stabilization of Mn4+ ions doping into the K2TiF6 host. The prepared phosphors exhibited intensive red emission at approximately 632 nm and excellent thermal stability in the range of 300-500 K upon 460 nm light excitation. Moreover, the K2TiF6:Mn4+ nanosheets were integrated on InGaN/AlGaN nanowire WLEDs for color quality study. The results show that the nanowire WLEDs with red-emitting phosphor exhibit unprecedentedly high color rendering index ~96.4, and correlated color temperature ~4450 K.

Controlled carrier mean free path for the enhanced efficiency of III-nitride deep-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes.

Electron overflow from the active region confines the AlGaN deep-ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diode (LED) performance. This paper proposes a novel approach to mitigate the electron leakage problem in AlGaN deep-UV LEDs using concave quantum barrier (QB) structures. The proposed QBs suppress the electron leakage by significantly reducing the electron mean free path that improves the electron capturing capability in the active region. Overall, such an engineered structure also enhances the hole injection into the active region, thereby enhancing the radiative recombination in the quantum wells. As a result, our study shows that the proposed structure exhibits an optical power of 9.16 mW at ∼284nm wavelength, which is boosted by ∼40.5% compared to conventional AlGaN UV LED operating at 60 mA injection current.

Improved Performance of Electron Blocking Layer Free AlGaN Deep Ultraviolet Light-Emitting Diodes Using Graded Staircase Barriers.

To prevent electron leakage in deep ultraviolet (UV) AlGaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs), Al-rich p-type AlxGa(1-x)N electron blocking layer (EBL) has been utilized. However, the conventional EBL can mitigate the electron overflow only up to some extent and adversely, holes are depleted in the EBL due to the formation of positive sheet polarization charges at the heterointerface of the last quantum barrier (QB)/EBL. Subsequently, the hole injection efficiency of the LED is severely limited. In this regard, we propose an EBL-free AlGaN deep UV LED structure using graded staircase quantum barriers (GSQBs) instead of conventional QBs without affecting the hole injection efficiency. The reported structure exhibits significantly reduced thermal velocity and mean free path of electrons in the active region, thus greatly confines the electrons over there and tremendously decreases the electron leakage into the p-region. Moreover, such specially designed QBs reduce the quantum-confined Stark effect in the active region, thereby improves the electron and hole wavefunctions overlap. As a result, both the internal quantum efficiency and output power of the GSQB structure are ~2.13 times higher than the conventional structure at 60 mA. Importantly, our proposed structure exhibits only ~20.68% efficiency droop during 0-60 mA injection current, which is significantly lower compared to the regular structure.

Deep red fluoride dots-in-nanoparticles for high color quality micro white light-emitting diodes.

In this study, a novel nanostructure of fluoride red emitting phosphor is synthesized via soft templates. K2SiF6:Mn4+ nanocrystals in the range of 3-5 nm diameter are found inside the porous K2SiF6:Mn4+ nanoparticle hosts, forming unique dots-in-nanoparticles (d-NPs) structures with controlled optical properties. The porous K2SiF6:Mn4+ d-NPs exhibit a sharp and deep red emission with an excellent quantum yield of ∼95.9%, and ultra-high color purity with the corresponding x and y in the CIE chromaticity coordinates are 0.7102 and 0.2870, respectively. Moreover, this nanophosphor possesses good thermal stability in range of 300 K-500 K, under light excitation of 455 nm. The K2SiF6:Mn4+ d-NPs are covered onto a surface of 100×100 µm2 blue-yellow InxGa1-xN nanowire light-emitting diode (LED) to make warm white LEDs (WLEDs). The fabricated WLEDs present an excellent color rendering index of ∼95.4 and a low correlated color temperature of ∼3649 K. Porous K2SiF6:Mn4+ d-NPs are suggested as a potential red component for high color quality micro WLED applications.

High-performance electron-blocking-layer-free deep ultraviolet light-emitting diodes implementing a strip-in-a-barrier structure.

In this Letter, the electron-blocking-layer (EBL)-free AlGaN ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) using a strip-in-a-barrier structure have been proposed. The quantum barrier (QB) structures are systematically engineered by integrating a 1 nm intrinsic AlxGa(1-x)N strip into the middle of QBs. The resulted structures exhibit significantly reduced electron leakage and improved hole injection into the active region, thus generating higher carrier radiative recombination. Our study shows that the proposed structure improves radiative recombination by ∼220%, reduces electron leakage by ∼11 times, and enhances optical power by ∼225% at 60 mA current injection compared to a conventional AlGaN EBL LED structure. Moreover, the EBL-free strip-in-a-barrier UV LED records the maximum internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of ∼61.5% which is ∼72% higher, and IQE droop is ∼12.4%, which is ∼333% less compared to the conventional AlGaN EBL LED structure at ∼284.5nm wavelength. Hence, the proposed EBL-free AlGaN LED is the potential solution to enhance the optical power and produce highly efficient UV emitters.

High-performance nanowire ultraviolet light-emitting diodes with potassium hydroxide and ammonium sulfide surface passivation.

Potassium hydroxide (KOH) and ammonium sulfide (NH4)2Sx have been used as a surface passivation treatment to improve the electrical and optical performance of AlGaN nanowire ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Enhancements in photoluminescence at 335 nm (49%), optical output power (65%), and electroluminescence (83%), with respect to the as-grown nanowire LED are recorded for the AlGaN nanowire UV LEDs with surface passivation. These enhancements are attributed to the reduced nonradiative recombination on the nanowire surfaces. This study provides a potential surface passivation approach to produce high-power AlGaN nanowire LEDs operating in the UV spectrum.

Enhancing the light extraction efficiency of AlInN nanowire ultraviolet light-emitting diodes with photonic crystal structures.

In this paper, AlInN nanowire ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with emission at ∼299 nm have been successfully demonstrated. We have further studied the light extraction properties of these nanowire LEDs using photonic crystal structures with square and hexagonal lattices of nanowires. The light extraction efficiency (LEE) of the periodic nanowire LED arrays was found to be significantly increased as compared to random nanowire LEDs. The LEEs reach ∼ 56%, and ∼ 63% for the square and hexagonal photonic crystal-based nanowire structures, respectively. Moreover, highly transverse-magnetic polarized emission was observed with dominant vertical light emission for the AlInN nanowire ultraviolet LEDs.

Improving carrier transport in AlGaN deep-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes using a strip-in-a-barrier structure.

This paper reports the illustration of electron blocking layer (EBL)-free AlGaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) operating in the deep-ultraviolet (DUV) wavelength at ∼270nm. In this work, we demonstrated that the integration of an optimized thin undoped AlGaN strip layer in the middle of the last quantum barrier (LQB) could generate enough conduction band barrier height for the effectively reduced electron overflow into the p-GaN region. Moreover, the hole injection into the multi-quantum-well active region is significantly increased due to a large hole accumulation at the interface of the AlGaN strip and the LQB. As a result, the internal quantum efficiency and output power of the proposed LED structure has been enhanced tremendously compared to that of the conventional p-type EBL-based LED structure.

High performance electron blocking layer-free InGaN/GaN nanowire white-light-emitting diodes.

We investigated the effect of coupled quantum wells to reduce electron overflow in InGaN/GaN dot-in-a-wire phosphor-free white color light-emitting diodes (white LEDs) and to improve the device performance. The light output power and external quantum efficiency (EQE) of the white LEDs with coupled quantum wells were increased and indicated that the efficiency droop was reduced. The improved output power and EQE of LEDs with the coupled quantum wells were attributed to the significant reduction of electron overflow primarily responsible for efficiency degradation through the near-surface GaN region. Compared to the commonly used AlGaN electron blocking layer between the device active region and p-GaN, the incorporation of a suitable InGaN quantum well between the n-GaN and the active region does not adversely affect the hole injection process. Moreover, the electron transport to the device active region can be further controlled by optimizing the thickness and bandgap energy of this InGaN quantum well. In addition, a blue-emitting InGaN quantum well is incorporated between the quantum dot active region and the p-GaN, wherein electrons escaping from the device active region can recombine with holes and contribute to white-light emission. The resulting device exhibits high internal quantum efficiency of 58.5% with highly stable emission characteristics and virtually no efficiency droop.

Epitaxial Growth and Characterization of AlInN-Based Core-Shell Nanowire Light Emitting Diodes Operating in the Ultraviolet Spectrum.

We report the demonstration of the first axial AlInN ultraviolet core-shell nanowire light-emitting diodes with highly stable emission in the ultraviolet wavelength range. During epitaxial growth of the AlInN layer, an AlInN shell is spontaneously formed, resulting in reduced nonradiative recombination on the nanowire surface. The AlInN nanowires exhibit a high internal quantum efficiency of ~52% at room temperature for emission at 295 nm. The peak emission wavelength can be varied from 290 nm to 355 nm by changing the growth conditions. Moreover, significantly strong transverse magnetic (TM) polarized emission is recorded, which is ~4 times stronger than the transverse electric (TE) polarized light at 295 nm. This study provides an alternative approach for the fabrication of new types of high-performance ultraviolet light emitters.

Full-Color InGaN/AlGaN Nanowire Micro Light-Emitting Diodes Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy: A Promising Candidate for Next Generation Micro Displays.

We have demonstrated full-color and white-color micro light-emitting diodes (µLEDs) using InGaN/AlGaN core-shell nanowire heterostructures, grown on silicon substrate by molecular beam epitaxy. InGaN/AlGaN core-shell nanowire µLED arrays were fabricated with their wavelengths tunable from blue to red by controlling the indium composition in the device active regions. Moreover, our fabricated phosphor-free white-color µLEDs demonstrate strong and highly stable white-light emission with high color rendering index of ~ 94. The µLEDs are in circular shapes with the diameter varying from 30 to 100 µm. Such high-performance µLEDs are perfectly suitable for the next generation of high-resolution micro-display applications.