Resonant cavity microarray high-efficiency light-emitting diode chip
Technical Field
The invention relates to a microarray high-efficiency light-emitting diode chip based on a resonant cavity, belonging to the field of semiconductor photoelectronics.
Background
With the continuous improvement of the luminous efficiency of the LED chip, the LED is more and more widely applied in the fields of optical fiber communication, illumination and the like. The luminous efficiency of an LED is generally referred to as the external quantum efficiency, and it is the product of the internal quantum efficiency and the light extraction efficiency. Although designing the active region with quantum wells and heterojunctions can bring the internal quantum efficiency of the LED close to the theoretical limit of 100%, the optimized light extraction efficiency of a common LED is around 2%. The simple structure is shown in fig. 1, and includes, from top to bottom, an upper electrode 100, an upper confinement layer 200, an active region 300, a lower confinement layer 400, a substrate 500, and a lower electrode 600. The main causes of low external quantum efficiency are as follows: 1. isotropic spontaneous emission limits the light extraction efficiency. Electrons and holes injected into the active region emit light compositely in the form of spontaneous radiation, the intensity distribution of the spontaneous radiation in all directions of the space is the same, and only light within the range of the light extraction angle can be emitted out of the device due to the problem of the critical angle of the emergent light, so that the light extraction efficiency of the LED is limited; 2. the electrode 100 has a light shielding effect. Current is injected from the P electrode, electrons and holes in the active region emit light in a combined mode in a spontaneous radiation mode, light emitted by the active region below the P electrode is shielded by the opaque electrode and is difficult to emit out of the device, and the light extraction efficiency of the LED is reduced; 3. the current spread is not uniform. The conventional LED mainly enters an active region by means of the transverse expansion of current, the expanded current radiates and compounds light in the active region, but the light extraction efficiency is not high due to the nonuniform transverse expansion of the current; 4. the side walls emit little light. The horizontal width of a common LED is more than 100 times of the vertical thickness, most light exits from the top, and the light exiting from the side wall is usually ignored. 5. The substrate 500 has a strong absorption of light. The active region radiates the light that is recombined out, and since the substrate 500 is opaque, the light directed to the substrate is absorbed by the substrate. Compared with the traditional LED, the Resonant Cavity Light Emitting Diode (RCLED) adopting the resonant cavity design enables the emergent light to have higher light intensity, efficiency and modulation bandwidth, and better directivity, spectral purity and temperature reliability. Although the RCLED concentrates most of the light within the light extraction angle by changing the spatial intensity distribution of the spontaneous emission, a part of the waveguide mode light emitted around the diode cannot be extracted, resulting in low external quantum efficiency of the RCLED.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to provide a micro-array high-efficiency light-emitting diode chip based on a resonant cavity, which not only improves the light extraction efficiency of light from the upper surface of the chip by changing the internal light field distribution by using the resonant cavity structure, but also effectively extracts the light emitted from the side wall by increasing the relative area ratio of the peripheral side wall vertical to the upper surface by using the micro-array structure, thereby increasing the light extraction efficiency and the external quantum efficiency thereof, and simultaneously solving the five problems of the traditional LED and the problem of low light extraction efficiency of the common RCLED.
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a resonant cavity microarray high efficiency light emitting diode chip according to the present invention. Wherein (a) is a top view of the resonant cavity micro-array high-efficiency light-emitting diode chip, an array (6 × 6 array in the figure) is composed of m × n resonant cavity light-emitting diode chip micro-units 101 with a horizontal dimension of 1 to 50 micrometers, a part of the resonant cavity light-emitting diode chip micro-units (2 × 2 micro-units in the figure) at the center of the chip are replaced by bonding electrodes 102, and each resonant cavity light-emitting diode chip micro-unit 101 is communicated with the bonding electrodes 102 through a partition 110. (b) For the vertical cross-sectional view of the resonant cavity micro-array high-efficiency LED chip along the AA' direction, the substrate 240 integrates the micro-units 101 (6 micro-units in the figure) of each resonant cavity LED chip on one chip, the partition 110 is etched to the substrate 240, and SiO is used between the adjacent units2The dielectric layer 130 is isolated, the P electrode is communicated by the ITO 120, and in order to strengthen current expansion, a part of the current expansion upper electrode 111 is filled in the adjacent unit channel. Wherein the partition 110 comprises ITO 120, SiO2A dielectric layer 130 and a current spreading upper electrode 111. (c) Is a cross-sectional view of a micro-unit of a resonant cavity micro-array high-efficiency light emitting diode chip, which comprises transparent conductive layers of ITO 120 and SiO2The isolation layer 130, the upper Bragg reflector 210, the resonant cavity 220, the lower Bragg reflector 230, the current spreading upper electrode 111, the substrate 240 and the lower electrode 250. A lateral oxide layer 140 located above the cavity 220, the cavity 220 containing an active region 221 for optical radiation. The upper Bragg reflector 210 is made of low refractive index Al with a thickness of 1/4 incident light wavelengths eachxGa1-xAs material layer 211 and high refractive index AlyGa1- yThe As material layers 212 alternate. The lower Bragg reflector 230 is made of low refraction at 1/4 each for the wavelength of the incident lightRate of AlxGa1- xAs material layer 232 and high refractive index AlyGa1-yThe As material layers 231 are alternately composed. Thickness 1/4 each refers to the thickness of the high or low index of refraction of each layer.
In operation, the lower electrode 250 of the chip is grounded and the bonding electrode 102 is connected to a positive potential. Positive charges, i.e., holes, are injected into the active region 221 of each resonant cavity light emitting diode chip micro unit 101 through the current spreading upper electrode 111, the transparent conductive layer ITO 120, and the upper bragg reflector 210, negative charges, i.e., electrons, are injected into the active region 221 of each resonant cavity light emitting diode chip micro unit 101 through the substrate 240 and the lower bragg reflector 230, and the electrons and the holes are radiatively recombined in the active region 221 to emit light. Under the action of the resonant cavity 220, the spatial distribution of the optical radiation is no longer isotropic, but is changed into an extraction mode perpendicular to the chip surface and a waveguide mode parallel to the chip surface, wherein the extraction mode is within the critical angle of total reflection, so that effective extraction can be obtained, and the waveguide mode can be extracted through the side wall of each resonant cavity light emitting diode chip micro-unit.
Compared with the conventional light-emitting diode, the resonant cavity microarray-based high-efficiency light-emitting diode has the following advantages:
1. the invention adopts the resonant cavity structure to change the spatial distribution of the spontaneous radiation field of the active region and distributes more light within the vertical light extraction angle so as to improve the light extraction efficiency of the upper surface of the chip.
2. According to the invention, the current extension upper electrode 111 is deposited in the adjacent channel, so that the light can not be blocked, and the problem of light shielding effect of a conventional LED electrode is solved.
3. The invention adopts the microarray structure and deposits the transparent conducting layer ITO 120 to promote the current expansion, so as to solve the problem of uneven current expansion of the common LED.
4. The invention increases the relative area ratio of the side walls by utilizing the micro-array structure, increases the light extraction ratio of the side walls, realizes the effective extraction of waveguide modes, and solves the problem that the light extraction of the side walls is weak by common LEDs.
5. The present invention eliminates the effect of the absorbing substrate by adding a highly reflective lattice matched semiconductor Lag mirror 230.
6. The invention improves the utilization rate of the injection current. The lateral oxidation layer 140 is made of AlAs material with Al component more than 0.98, non-conductive alumina is formed through a lateral oxidation process, when current is injected, the current does not pass through the non-conductive lateral oxidation layer 140 and only flows into the oxidation hole part formed in the middle, the current is limited in an active area below the light emitting hole, non-radiative recombination of the side wall is reduced, and the utilization rate of the current is improved.
7. The invention adopts the resonant cavity structure to ensure that the radiation wavelength is more stable. The wavelength of radiation from the RCLED structure is dependent on the cavity length of resonant cavity 220, and the RCLED structure increases the optical mode density at the selected wavelength and the temperature has relatively little effect on the cavity length of resonant cavity 220 so the wavelength of radiation is relatively stable. The resonator may be chosen to shield other wavelengths, such as 650nm, which would be the case.
Drawings
FIG. 1: structural schematic diagram of LED with conventional structure
FIG. 2: schematic diagram of resonant cavity microarray high efficiency light emitting diode chip. (a) A top view of the resonant cavity microarray high efficiency light emitting diode chip, (b) a cross-sectional view of the resonant cavity microarray high efficiency light emitting diode chip, and (c) a cross-sectional view of the microcell of the resonant cavity microarray high efficiency light emitting diode chip.
In fig. 1, 100 is an upper electrode, 200 is a P-type upper confinement layer, 300 is an active region, 400 is an N-type lower confinement layer, 500 is a substrate, and 600 is a lower electrode.
In fig. 2, 110 is a division area, 101 is a light emitting microcell, 102 is a central bonding electrode, 111 is a current spreading upper electrode, 120 is a transparent conductive layer ITO, 130 is a SiO2 isolation layer, 140 is a lateral oxide layer, 240 is a substrate, 250 is a lower electrode, 210 is an upper bragg mirror, 211 is a low refractive index material layer, 212 is a high refractive index material layer, 220 is a resonant cavity, 221 is an active area, 230 is a lower bragg mirror, 231 is a high refractive index material layer, and 232 is a low refractive index material layer.
Detailed Description
The resonant cavity based microarray high efficiency 650nm red led chip as shown in fig. 2(b) can be realized as follows:
growing epitaxial wafer
On the N-type GaAs substrate 240, a 30-pair N-doped lower Bragg reflector 230 is epitaxially grown in sequence by using a Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) method, with a doping concentration of 1018cm-3Wherein the high refractive index material 231 and the low refractive index material 232 are Al having a thickness of 46.6nm and a refractive index of about 3.477, respectively0.5Ga0.5As and AlAs having a thickness of 50.1nm and a refractive index of about 3.112. Then growing the non-doped resonant cavity 220 and the active region 221 by using 3 Ga0.5In0.5P/(Al0.5Ga0.5)In0.5The P multiple quantum well is used as a light-emitting active region, and the thicknesses of the well and the barrier are both 5 nm. Followed by 1 pair of P-type AlAs layers for lateral oxidation, with a doping concentration of 1018cm-3Thickness 50.1 nm; finally, 5 pairs of P-doped upper Bragg reflector mirrors 210 with a doping concentration of 1018cm-3Wherein the high refractive index material 212 and the low refractive index material 211 are respectively Al having a thickness of 46.6nm and a refractive index of about 3.4770.5Ga0.5As and Al with a thickness of 49.4nm and a refractive index of about 3.1830.9Ga0.1As. Thus, an epitaxial wafer of the 650nm red resonant cavity light emitting diode is obtained.
Second, carve little unit mesa
1. Cleaning an epitaxial wafer: the tablets were washed twice with acetone and alcohol, then rinsed 30 times with clear water and finally dried with a nitrogen gun.
2. Long SiO2And (5) making a mask and spin coating.
3. Photoetching a table top: the 6 multiplied by 6 micro unit table tops are positively glued and etched, and the horizontal dimension of each micro unit table top is 45 multiplied by 45 mu m2The cell spacing was 10 μm, and the etch depth reached the substrate.
And thirdly, removing SiO2, and performing lateral oxidation to prepare a lateral oxidation layer 140.
Etching the window of the isolation layer
1. Photoetching an isolation layer: sputtering SiO with thickness of 300nm2And (4) making a mask, spin coating and positive photoresist photoetching.
2. Etching to form SiO2And removing the photoresist from the window layer.
Five, etch ITO layer and solve the line
1. An ITO layer with a thickness of 100nm was sputtered.
2. Etching ITO: spin coating, positive photoresist photoetching and ITO corrosion.
3. And removing the photoresist and cleaning.
Sixthly, etching P electrode
1. Sputtering Ti/Au with the thickness of 300 nm.
2. Spin coating, positive photoresist photoetching, electrode etching and photoresist removing.
And seventhly, thinning the back grinding plate to 120 mu m, and sputtering the AuGeNi back electrode with the thickness of 300 nm.
Eighth, annealing
1. And (6) annealing the alloy. Anneal at 430 deg.C for 40s to achieve good ohmic contact.
2. And scribing and cleaving to obtain a 650nm red light emitting diode chip with 6 × 6 microcells as shown in fig. 2.
Nine effects
Compared with the light emitting diode with the structure of fig. 1, the external quantum efficiency of the red light emitting diode chip combining the resonant cavity structure with the microarray is more than 50%.