Advanced semiconductor devices often utilize structural and geometrical effects to tailor their characteristics and improve their performance. Our detailed understanding of such geometrical effects in the epitaxial selective area growth of GaN on sapphire substrates is reported here, and we utilize them to enhance light extraction from GaN light emitting diodes. Systematic size and spacing effects were performed side-by-side on a single 2” sapphire substrate to minimize experimental sampling errors for a set of 144 pattern arrays with circular mask opening windows in SiO2. We show that the mask opening diameter leads to as much as 4 times increase in the thickness of the grown layers for 20 μm spacings and that spacing effects can lead to as much as 3 times increase in thickness for a 350 μm dot diameter. We also observed that the facet evolution in comparison with extracted Ga adatom diffusion lengths directly influences the vertical and lateral overgrowth rates and can be controlled with pattern geometry. Lastly, such control over the facet development led to 2.5 times stronger electroluminescence characteristics from well-faceted GaN/InGaN multiple quantum well LEDs compared to non-faceted structures.
Tanaka, Atsunori, et al. "Strong geometrical effects in submillimeter selective area growth and light extraction of GaN light emitting diodes on sapphire." Scientific Reports, vol. 5, Nov. 2015. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep17314
Tanaka, Atsunori, Chen, Renjie, Jungjohann, Katherine L., & Dayeh, Shadi A. (2015). Strong geometrical effects in submillimeter selective area growth and light extraction of GaN light emitting diodes on sapphire. Scientific Reports, 5. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep17314
Tanaka, Atsunori, Chen, Renjie, Jungjohann, Katherine L., et al., "Strong geometrical effects in submillimeter selective area growth and light extraction of GaN light emitting diodes on sapphire," Scientific Reports 5 (2015), https://doi.org/10.1038/srep17314
@article{osti_1236206,
author = {Tanaka, Atsunori and Chen, Renjie and Jungjohann, Katherine L. and Dayeh, Shadi A.},
title = {Strong geometrical effects in submillimeter selective area growth and light extraction of GaN light emitting diodes on sapphire},
annote = {Advanced semiconductor devices often utilize structural and geometrical effects to tailor their characteristics and improve their performance. Our detailed understanding of such geometrical effects in the epitaxial selective area growth of GaN on sapphire substrates is reported here, and we utilize them to enhance light extraction from GaN light emitting diodes. Systematic size and spacing effects were performed side-by-side on a single 2” sapphire substrate to minimize experimental sampling errors for a set of 144 pattern arrays with circular mask opening windows in SiO2. We show that the mask opening diameter leads to as much as 4 times increase in the thickness of the grown layers for 20 μm spacings and that spacing effects can lead to as much as 3 times increase in thickness for a 350 μm dot diameter. We also observed that the facet evolution in comparison with extracted Ga adatom diffusion lengths directly influences the vertical and lateral overgrowth rates and can be controlled with pattern geometry. Lastly, such control over the facet development led to 2.5 times stronger electroluminescence characteristics from well-faceted GaN/InGaN multiple quantum well LEDs compared to non-faceted structures.},
doi = {10.1038/srep17314},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1236206},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
issn = {ISSN 2045-2322},
volume = {5},
place = {United States},
publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},
year = {2015},
month = {11}}