LED蓝宝石图形化衬底的研究进展及发展趋势

图形化蓝宝石衬底作为GaN基LED照明外延衬底材料,由于其能降低GaN外延薄膜的线位错密度和提高LED的光萃取效率的显著性能在近几年来引起国内外许多科研机构和厂商的广泛兴趣。从衬底的制备工艺、图形尺寸角度出发,综述了图形化蓝宝石衬底GaN基LED的研究进展,并对其未来在大功率照明市场的应用进行了展望。     

基于图形化蓝宝石衬底的HB-LED研究进展

为了制作高亮度LED,需要在图形化蓝宝石衬底上生长GaN材料。通过光刻在平坦蓝宝石衬底上制作掩膜图形,通过刻蚀将图形转移到蓝宝石衬底,得到图形化蓝宝石衬底。在图形化蓝宝石衬底上进行GaN的侧向外延生长,并做后续处理,就制成了基于图形化蓝宝石衬底的高亮度LED。图形化蓝宝石衬底上GaN的侧向外延生长使得外延材料的位错密度从1010 cm-2降低到107 cm-2,这减少了发生非辐射复合的载流子,多量子阱发射更多的光子,LED的内量子效率提高。此外,图形化蓝宝石衬底能够有效散射从多量子阱射出的光线,使得出射光射到逃离区的几率更大,从而提高光萃取率。内量子效率和光萃取率的提高大大改善了LED的光电特性。     

图形化蓝宝石衬底GaN基LED的研究进展

蓝宝石衬底作为发光二极管最常用的衬底,经过不断发展,在克服其与GaN间晶格失配和热膨胀失配问题上,研究人员不断提出解决方案。近期发展起来的图形化衬底技术,除了能减少生长在蓝宝石衬底上GaN之间的差排缺陷,提高磊晶质量以解决失配问题,更能提高LED的出光效率。从衬底图形的形状、尺寸、制备工艺出发,回顾了图形化蓝宝石衬底GaN基LED的研究进展,详细介绍了近年来关于图形化衬底技术与其他技术在提高LED性能方面的结合,总结了图形化蓝宝石衬底应用于大尺寸芯片的优势,并对其未来在大功率照明市场的应用进行了展望。     

LED用图形化蓝宝石衬底的干法刻蚀工艺

近年来,图形化蓝宝石衬底(PSS)作为GaN基LED外延衬底材料被广泛应用。采用感应耦合等离子体(ICP)技术对涂覆有光刻胶阵列图案的蓝宝石衬底进行刻蚀。通过研究及优化不同ICP刻蚀工艺参数对刻蚀速率和选择比的影响,分别成功制备出蒙古包形和圆锥形图形化蓝宝石衬底片,并在其表面完成InGaN/GaN多量子阱外延及芯片工艺。借助光致发光和电致发光等手段测试其LED器件的光电学性能。实验结果发现圆锥形的图形化蓝宝石衬底拥有更强的光功率和更窄的半峰宽,说明这种形貌的衬底在GaN外延时有效减少了晶格失配造成的缺陷,提高了晶体质量,从而更有效地增加LED出光效率。     

图形化蓝宝石衬底形貌对GaN基LED出光性能的影响

近年来,图形化蓝宝石衬底(PSS)作为GaN基LED外延衬底材料被广泛应用.通过干法刻蚀和湿法腐蚀制备了不同规格和形状的蓝宝石衬底图形,并进行外延生长、芯片制备和封装验证,采用扫描电子显微镜(SEM)和3D轮廓仪进行形貌表征,研究了不同规格和形状的衬底图形对LED芯片出光性能影响,并与外购锥形衬底(PSSZ2)进行对比.结果表明,在20 mA工作电流下,PSSZ2的LED光通量为8.33 lm.采用类三角锥和盾形衬底的LED光通量分别为7.83 lm和7.67 lm,分别比PSSZ2衬底低6.00％和7.92％.对锥形形貌进行优化,采用高1.69 μm、直径2.62 μm、间距0.42 μm的锥形衬底(PSSZ3)的LED光通量为8.67 lm,比PSSZ2衬底高4.08％,优化的PSSZ3能有效地提高LED出光性能.     

图形化蓝宝石衬底工艺研究进展

图形化蓝宝石衬底(PSS)技术是一种提高LED亮度的新技术。结合光刻和刻蚀工艺制作图形化蓝宝石衬底。有关图形化蓝宝石衬底的研究主要集中在对光刻和刻蚀工艺的研究,以及图形化蓝宝石衬底提高LED亮度的机理。目前微米级图形化蓝宝石衬底已经得到普遍的应用,与基于平坦蓝宝石衬底的LED相比,PSS-LED的发光功率提高了30%左右。图形化蓝宝石衬底技术的发展经历了从早期的条纹状图形到目前应用较广的半球形和锥形图形,从湿法刻蚀到干法刻蚀,从微米级到纳米级图形的演变。由于能够显著提高LED亮度,纳米级图形化蓝宝石必将得到广泛的运用。     

图形化蓝宝石衬底技术综述

采用图形化蓝宝石衬底(PSS)技术可以降低GaN外延层材料位错密度,提高了发光二极管(LED)的内量子效率(IQE),同时使LED光析出率(LEE)提高。基于PSS技术可以制作高效GaN基高亮度LED。基于已公开发表文献对用于高效LED制作的PSS技术做了综述,介绍了PSS技术演化、PSS的制作方法与主要的图形结构、PSS上GaN外延层生长机制以及PSS对LED性能的影响。PSS结构对LED的IQE与LEE均有提高,但对二者哪个提高更为有效没有定论,最近的研究结果倾向于以为对LEE提高更为有效。PSS对LED的IQE与LEE提高的机制目前并不是非常清楚,对公开发表的PSS对LEE的提高机制提出了不同看法。不同PSS结构与尺寸对GaN质量以及LED性能的影响方面的研究目前还非常缺乏。     

GaN基LED的图形衬底优化研究

设计了方形和阶梯状两大类的图形化蓝宝石衬底(PSS), 使用Crosslight公司的工艺软件CSuprem建立了三维的方形和阶梯状两类图形衬底GaN LED器件, 然后使用APSYS软件模拟计算出它们的光电特性。并且对方形图形衬底的刻蚀深度进行了优化, 通过对模拟结果的比较得到刻蚀深度与边长的比值为0.4时, 这种方形图形衬底GaN LED的光提取效率最高, 且比平面衬底提高了20.13%。对阶梯状图形衬底的阶梯层数进行了比较, 发现随着阶梯层数的增加, 光提取效率也随着增加, 阶梯状层数为5时, 光提取效率比平面衬底提高了30.03%。并对方形PSS LED进行了实验验证。     

溅射AlN技术对GaN基LED性能的影响

研究了在图形蓝宝石衬底(PSS)上利用磁控溅射制备AlN薄膜的相关技术,随后通过采用金属有机化学气相沉积(MOCVD)在相关AlN薄膜上生了长GaN基LED.通过一系列对比实验,分析了AlN薄膜的制备条件对GaN外延层晶体质量的影响,研究了AlN薄膜溅射前N2预处理功率和溅射后热处理温度对GaN基LED性能的作用机制.实验结果表明:AlN薄膜厚度的增加,导致GaN缓冲层成核密度逐渐升高和GaN外延膜螺位错密度降低刃位错密度升高;N2处理功率的提升会加剧衬底表面晶格损伤,在GaN外延膜引入更多的螺位错;AlN热处理温度的升高粗化了表面并提高了GaN成核密度,使得GaN外延膜螺位错密度降低刃位错密度升高;而这些GaN外延膜位错密度的变化又进一步影响到LED的光电特性.     

蓝宝石图形衬底上利用AlN缓冲层生长高质量GaN

在图形化衬底上以AlN作为缓冲层生长高质量的GaN薄膜,国内相关的报道较少。通过引入两步缓冲层生长方法,在蓝宝石图形衬底上生长基于AlN缓冲层的高质量GaN薄膜,利用低温AlN层生长时内部的缺陷,选择性进行腐蚀,形成衬底与外延层界面间的侧向倒斜角,提高光萃取效率;同时在其上继续生长高温AlN,为后续GaN薄膜提供高质量模板。从外延角度出发,以表面形貌及其上生长的GaN薄膜的晶体质量为衡量依据,优化了低温AlN缓冲层以及高温AlN缓冲层的生长参数,优化后LED样品在20 mA测试电流下的光输出功率较参考样品提升了4%。     

Enhancement of InGaN-Based Vertical LED With Concavely Patterned Surface Using Patterned Sapphire Substrate

To improve the external quantum efficiency, we have proposed a new method utilizing surface roughening of vertical-type light-emitting diodes (VT-LEDs) fabricated on hemispherical patterned sapphire substrate by using a laser lift-off technique. The advantages of this method are simple and reproducible in transferring the well-defined patterns on sapphire into GaN layer. The VT-LED with concavely patterned surface showed a nearly twofold increase in the output power compared to the normal planar surface. This improvement in the VT-LED performances is attributed to the increase in the escaping probability of photons from the LED surface.     

Influence of GaN material characteristics on device performance for blue and ultraviolet light-emitting diodes

An analysis of blue and near-ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and material structures explores the dependence of device performance on material properties as measured by various analytical techniques. The method used for reducing dislocations in the epitaxial III-N films that is explored here is homoepitaxial growth on commercial hybride vapor-phase epitaxy (HVPE) GaN substrates. Blue and UV LED devices are demonstrated to offer superior performance when grown on GaN substrates as compared to the more conventional sapphire substrate. In particular, the optical analysis of the near-UV LEDs on GaN versus ones on sapphire show substantially higher light output over the entire current-injection regime and twice the internal quantum efficiency at low forward current. As the wavelength is further decreased to the deep-UV, the performance improvement of the homoepitaxially grown structure as compared to that grown on sapphire is enhanced.     

Enhancement of light extraction efficiency of GaN-based light-emitting diode using ZnO sol-gel direct imprinting

ZnO nano-structures were formed on transparent conducting oxide layer of GaN LED device on non-patterned (non-PSS) and patterned sapphire substrates (PSS). Since ZnO nano-structures were formed by sol-gel direct imprinting process, plasma etching process, which may create the plasma induced damage, was not used. Due to the ZnO nano-structures, light extracted from active layer was coupled with ZnO nano-structures and thus total internal reflection at the ITO layer was suppressed. According to electroluminescence measurement, the emission intensities of GaN LED devices with ZnO nano-structures, on both non-PSS and PSS sapphire substrates were increased by 20.5% and 19.0%, respectively, compared to GaN LED devices without ZnO nano-structures, due to the suppression of total internal reflection. Moreover, it is confirmed that there is no decrease of light extraction on side direction due to light focusing to vertical axis by nanostructure. Electrical performance of GaN LED devices were not degraded by ZnO sol-gel direct imprinting process.     

Investigation of light output performance for gallium nitride-based light-emitting diodes grown on different shapes of patterned sapphire substrate

GaN-based blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on various patterned sapphire substrates (PSSs) are investigated in detail. Hemispherical and triangular pyramidal PSSs have been applied to improve the performance of LEDs compared with conventional LEDs grown on planar sapphire substrate. The structural, electrical, and optical properties of these LEDs are investigated. The leakage current is related to the crystalline quality of epitaxial GaN films, and it is improved by using the PSS technique. The light output power and emission efficiency of the LED grown on triangular pyramidal PSS with optimized fill factor show the best performance in all the samples, which indicates that the pattern structure and fill factor of the PSS are related to the capability of light extraction.     

GaN-Based LEDs With Mesh ITO p-Contact and Nanopillars

In this letter, the authors report the fabrication of GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with mesh indium-tin-oxide p-contact and nanopillars on patterned sapphire substrate. Using hydrothermal ZnO nanorods as the etching hard mask, the authors successfully formed vertical GaN nanopillars inside the mesh regions and on the mesa-etched regions. It was found that 20-mA forward voltage and reverse leakage currents observed from the proposed LED were only slightly larger than those observed from the conventional LEDs. It was also found that output power of the proposed LED was more than 80% larger than that observed from conventional LED prepared on flat sapphire substrate.     

GaN基LED与Si键合技术的研究

采用金属键合技术结合激光剥离技术将GaN基LED从蓝宝石衬底成功转移到Si衬底上。利用X射线光电子谱(XPS)研究不同阻挡层对Au向GaN扩散所起的阻挡作用,确定键合所需的金属过渡层。利用多层金属过渡层,在真空、温度400℃和加压300 N下实现GaN基LED和Si的键合,通过激光剥离技术将蓝宝石衬底从键合结构上剥离下来,形成GaN基LED/金属层/Si结构。用金相显微镜及原子力显微镜(AFM)观察结构的表面形貌,测得表面粗糙度(RMS)为12.1 nm。X射线衍射(XRD)和Raman测试结果表明,衬底转移后,GaN基LED的结构及其晶体质量没有发生明显变化,而且GaN与蓝宝石衬底间的压应力得到了释放,使得Si衬底上GaN基LED的电致发光(EL)波长发生红移现象。     

Comparison of InGaN-Based LEDs Grown on Conventional Sapphire and Cone-Shape-Patterned Sapphire Substrate

To improve the external quantum efficiency, a high-quality InGaN/GaN film was grown on a cone-shape-patterned sapphire substrate (CSPSS) by using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. The surface pattern of the CSPSS seems to be more helpful for the accommodative relaxation of compressive strain related to the lattice mismatch between GaN and a sapphire substrate because the growth mode of GaN on the CSPSS was similar to that of the epitaxial lateral overgrowth. The output power of a light-emitting diode (LED) grown on the CSPSS was estimated to be 16.5 mW at a forward current of 20 mA, which is improved by 35% compared to that of a LED grown on a conventional sapphire substrate. The significant enhancement in output power is attributed to both the increase of the extraction efficiency, resulted from the increase in photon escaping probability due to enhanced light scattering at the CSPSS, and the improvement of the crystal quality due to the reduction of dislocation.