IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 62, NO.

7, JULY 2015

2257

Estimation Carrier Concentration of Light-Emitting

Diode via ElectricalThermal Characteristics
Huan-Ting Chen, Member, IEEE, Xiao-Fang Zhou, Jia-Yi Cai, and Shuo Lin

Abstract With the use of the capacitance, estimation

techniques for the carrier concentration of the light-emitting
diodes (LEDs) are introduced in this paper. The proposed model
relates the carrier concentration to the forward current, the
thermal resistance of the heatsink, the LED device, the device
package, and the other physical parameters of the device (such
as the bandgap energy, series resistance, and ideality factor),
coefficients for the current, and temperature effect on the
apparent capacitance altogether. It could provide a framework
for analyzing LED devices. The estimation methods consist of
simple procedures for electrical measurements, which are easy
for LED device manufacturers and system designers to follow.
The proposed model has been tested with LED devices, with
reasonably good agreement between theoretical and practical
results.
Index Terms Capacitance, carrier concentration, lighting
system, thermal model, white light-emitting diode (LED).

I. I NTRODUCTION
ITH the demands for high brightness, the driving
power of the light-emitting diode (LED) package
increases continuously and requires an extended long-term
stability [1], [2]. The main degradation mechanism of
LED reliability include dark spot defects, contact metal
migration, composition fluctuation, solder instability,
recombination-enhanced defect formation, thermally induced
defect formation, and so on. The reliability of LEDs could
be estimated based on key parameters, such as luminous
flux, optical power, forward voltage, thermal resistance,
current leakage, spectrum power distribution, correlated color
temperature, and so on [3][5]. The electrical properties of
LEDs are important for analyzing their reliability [6], [7].
Capacitance characteristics could provide a useful method
for the nondestructive measurement of LED devices and
evaluation of their structural and physical parameters [8][10].
The interactions of photometric, electrical, and thermal aspects
have been described mathematically in a photoelectrothermal
theory [11][16] for LED systems. The theory can be
used to set criteria for the optimal thermal design for the

Manuscript received February 19, 2015; revised April 10, 2015 and
April 28, 2015; accepted May 20, 2015. Date of current version
June 17, 2015. This work was supported in part by the Science Project of
Education Bureau of Fujian Province, China, under Grant JK2014027 and
Grant JA13191 and in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China under Grant 61307059. The review of this paper was arranged by
Editor J. Huang. (Corresponding author: Huan-Ting Chen.)
The authors are with the Department of Physics and Information
Engineering, Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou 363000, China
(e-mail: htchen23@163.com; zhou9190@vip.sina.com; 1247549642@
qq.com; 362073999@qq.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TED.2015.2436823

Fig. 1.
(a) Equivalent electrical model of LED. (b) Parallel model for
capacitanceconductance of LED.

appropriate heatsink for a given LED application. However,

no quantitative modeling has been previously reported to
relate the carrier concentration to the electricalthermal
characteristics in LEDs.
In view of this, the work in this paper is primarily targeted
to the use of apparent capacitance as a function of current
and temperature to determine the carrier concentration that
is required in the reliability. A faster measurement procedure
consisting of a series of electrical measurements and the
apparent capacitance, and the carrier concentration of the
LED can be estimated. The parameters obtained in this
procedure are applied to the proposed model to predict internal
junction temperature and carrier concentration that cannot be
easily accessed in practice.
II. C HARACTERIZATION AND M ODELING OF LED D EVICE
W ITH N EGATIVE C APACITANCE
A. Equivalent Capacitance Model of LED
Using Parallel Model
In general, LED could be considered that a p-n junction
and a Schottky diodes with junction capacitance C j ,
junction conductance G j , and series resistance rs , as shown
in Fig. 1(a). For ac measurements, the apparent conductance
G p and capacitance C p in parallel mode was adopted [17],
and the equivalent circuit was shown in Fig. 1(b).
The apparent conductance and capacitance could be
expressed as

G j (1 + rs G j ) + rs (C j )2

G p =
(1 + rs G j )2 + (rs C j )2
(1)
Cj

C p =
(1 + rs G j )2 + (rs C j )2
where G p is the apparent conductance, C p is the apparent
capacitance, and is the angular frequency of the applied

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 62, NO. 7, JULY 2015

alternate small signal. It is noted that the apparent conductance

and capacitance must be considered simultaneously to estimate
LED characteristics. At low frequencies, junction capacitance C j includes the diffusion and depletion capacitance.
While, at high frequencies, only the depletion layer
capacitance contributes to the junction capacitance, because
of the relaxation process of the diffusion capacitance [18].
The common electrical model for an LED consists of an
ideal diode and a series resistance. The voltage Vd across the
ideal diode can be expressed in terms of the total voltage
drop V across the series combination of the ideal diode
and the series resistance rs . Thus, Vd = V I rs , and its
currentvoltage (I V ) characteristic is given by




Eg
q (V I rs )
I = C exp
exp
(2)
nkT j
nkT j
where I is the forward current of the LED, C is the device
parameter, q is the magnitude of an electronic charge, k is the
Boltzmann constant, T j is the junction temperature, n is the
ideality factor, and E g is the bandgap energy.
The diode voltage equation is

nkT j
Eg
I
.
(3)
+
ln
V = I rs +
q
q
C
The junction conductance G j consists mainly of differential
conductance, as shown in the following:
Gj =

dI
qI
=
d Vd
nkT j

when G j  C, (1) becomes

G p = 1 + r
s
Gj
C

C p =
.
(1 + rs G j )2

(4)

(5)

B. Capacitance Carrier Concentration Characteristics

To investigate the reliability of the active layer, capacitance
measurement is carried out to analyze the carrier concentration
in the active region. For the GaInN/GaN multiple quantum
well structure LED [19], junction capacitance can be
expressed as

qs N B
(6)
Cj =
2(Vbi V )
where Vbi is the built-in voltage, V is the external bias voltage,
s is the dielectric permittivity, q is the electronic charge,
and N B is the carrier concentration of low-doped region. The
carrier concentration of the p-side region can be extracted
from the capacitancevoltage (CV ) measurement.
Putting (3) into (6), the carrier concentration can be
expressed as

 
E
nkT
2C 2j Vbi I rs qg q j ln CI
.
(7)
NB =
qs

Fig. 2. Flow chart of genetic algorithm used to search physical parameter

of LED.

Based on the (5), the carrier concentration with injection

current can be expressed as

2 
 
nkT j
Eg
qI
I
V
2C 2P 1 + rs nkT

I
r

ln
bi
s
q
q
j
C
.
NB =
qs
(8)
Based on the measured apparent capacitancecurrent curve
for LED, the apparent capacitance equation in term of the
current can be derived in the form of (8) using genetic
algorithm. The physical device parameters in (8) should
be automatically searched in a space of potential solutions
through genetic algorithm such that they finally reach an
optimal set of solutions which matches them to the measured
curve. From these practically measured voltage equations, the
device parameters (E g , n, C, r s , and N B ) of the LED can be
extracted. The flow chart of genetic algorithm used to search
physical parameter of LED is shown in Fig. 2.
Two important observations should be noted from (8) as
follows.
1) It has been suggested that ideality factor of a diode
is dependent on the trap-assisted tunneling and carrier
leakage. However, no quantitative modeling has been
previously reported to relate the carrier concentration to
the high ideality factor in LEDs. Therefore, (8) provides
a new formulation linking the carrier concentration to
the ideality factor.
2) As the ideality factor is associated with a second positive
term and a third negative term as denominator and
numerator of (8), a large ideality factor will lead to a
small value in the denominator and a high value in the
numerator, which in turn will result in a smaller carrier
concentration. Therefore, this new equation quantitatively sums up the relationship of carrier concentration
and ideality factor.
C. Carrier Concentration-Electrothermal Characteristics
In practice, the apparent capacitance C p is a function
of applied current and temperature [8], [9], which can be
expressed as follows:
C p = [kt (T j T0 ) + C p,0 ][ki (I I0 ) + 1]

(9)

where I0 is the reference current, ki and kt are the

coefficient for the current and temperature effect on the

CHEN et al.: ESTIMATION CARRIER CONCENTRATION OF LED VIA ELECTRICALTHERMAL CHARACTERISTICS

apparent capacitance, and C p,0 is the apparent capacitance at

reference point (T0 , I0 ).
For thermal characteristics of white LED, two heat flow
paths can be considered [20]. Upward, heat flow is represented
by the thermal resistance Rsilicone in series with the thermal
resistance of the phosphor coating Rphosphor . The downward heat flow can be, respectively, represented by the
junction-to-case thermal resistance Rjc in series with the
heatsink thermal resistance Rhs . It be used to demonstrate
the heat trapping effects of the encapsulation layers in the
flat LED package.
Therefore, the equivalent thermal resistance for white
 can be expressed as
LED Rjc

=
Rjc

1
1
Rphosphor +Rsilicone

1
Rjc +Rhs

Fig. 3.

(10)


T j = Ta + Rjc
Ph


1
= Ta +
kh I V
1/(Rsilicone + Rphosphor ) + 1/(Rjc + Rhs )
(11)

III. E XPERIMENT V ERIFICATIONS FOR

THE P ROPOSED T HEORY
A. Experimental Process
The vertical GaN-based LEDs on metal alloyed substrate
are used for the investigation. The LED chip structure
consists of directly deposited mirror on copper alloy substrate
as anode, p-GaN/ p-AlGaN layer, InGaN/GaN multiquantum
wells as active layer, and patterned n-GaN layer for light
extraction enhancement with n-electrode directly made on
the top, as shown in Fig. 3. The photons are reflected by
the mirror to avoid the geometry limited effect commonly
observed from the conventional structure. The optical
measurements of the LED samples are performed under
steady-state thermal and electrical conditions using the
PMS-50 spectrophotocolorimeter with an integrating sphere
(measured after 20 min of operation at different electrical
power levels and at an ambient temperature of 20). The
I V characteristics are measured with a Yokogawa GS610
sourcemeasure unit, The CV characteristics were measured
by a Keithley 590 CV analyzer. The Peltier-cooled fixture
was used to stabilize the LED temperature for the optical and
capacitance measurements and it also served as an actively

where Ta is the ambient temperature, Ph is the heat power,

and kh is the heat dissipation coefficient.
Putting (3) and (11) into (9), C p can be obtained by (12),
as shown at the bottom of this page.
Putting (12) into (8), the carrier concentration of LED can
be expressed by (13), as shown at the bottom of this page.
Several important observations are drawn from (13)
as follows.
1) Equation (13) relates the carrier concentration N B to
the forward current I, the thermal resistance of the
heatsink Rhs , the LED device Rjc , the device package
(Rsilicone and/or Rphosphor ), and the other physical
parameters of the device (such as the bandgap
energy E g , series resistance rs , and ideality factor n),
coefficients for the current, and temperature effect on
the apparent capacitance altogether. It is an equation that
integrates the thermal, electrical, and physical characteristics of the LED system altogether.

2r + I E g
I
s
1/(Rsilicone + Rphosphor ) + 1/(Rjc + Rhs )
q


C p = kt
 I T0 + C p,0 [ki (I I0 ) + 1]
1
nk
1 kh 1/(Rsilicone + Rphosphor ) + 1/(Rjc + Rhs ) q I ln C



2

Ta + kh

2 k t
NB =

Structure of LED sample.

2) For a given thermal design with a given set of

Rhs and Rjc , the carrier concentration is dependent on the
physical parameters, such as the band gap energy E g ,
the series resistance Rs , and the ideality factor n.
3) The proposed model is a multiphysical one that provides
physical insights for researchers and manufacturers. The
proposed model has been developed to predict the effect
caused by the package characteristics on the carrier
concentration inside white LED devices.

Based on above bidirectional thermal model of

white LED device, the junction temperature, T j, for
white LED mounted on a heatsink with a thermal resistance
Rhs can be rewritten as

Ta + kh

1 kh



1
1/(Rsilicone + Rphosphor ) + 1/(Rjc + Rhs )

1
1/(Rsilicone + Rphosphor ) + 1/(Rjc + Rhs )

(12)

I 2 rs + I qg
 
nk
I
q I ln C

qs

2 
qI
Vbi I rs
[ki (I I0 ) + 1]2 1 + rs nkT
j
qs

2259

Eg
q

T0 + C p,0

nkT j
q

ln

 I 
C

(13)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 62, NO. 7, JULY 2015

TABLE I
R EQUIRED PARAMETERS FOR LED S AMPLE

Fig. 4.

Schematic of the experimental setup.

Fig. 7.

Measured apparent capacitance versus current of LED.

Fig. 8.

Measured apparent capacitance versus temperature.

Fig. 5. Measured and calculated and junction temperature of LED mounted

on different heatsinks with current using bidirectional thermal model.

Fig. 6.

Measured current versus voltage of LED.

temperature-controlled cold plate. The schematic of the experimental setup is shown in Fig. 4.
B. Test on LED Samples
The LEDs are mounted on the heatsink with a thermal
resistance of 2.3/W and 10.5/W. Based on the bidirectional
thermal resistance network in (10) and (11), the measured
and calculated junction temperature of the LEDs with current
is obtained, as shown in Fig. 5. The package parameters
Rsilicone and Rphosphor could be extracted using the
proposed method [20]. The bidirectional thermal model

gives an accurate estimation for junction temperature. The

agreement between measured and calculated is reasonably
good. The maximum relative error between measured and
calculated results is 8.7%, the minimum relative error
is 2.6%, and the average relative error is 4.1%. The
parameters required for (3) can be determined using fitting
measured data of I V curve in Fig. 6 as n = 5.432,
rs = 3.673 , and E g = 2.731 eV. The required parameters
of LED sample list in Table I.
The apparent capacitances of LED are measured at different
current and temperature levels. The parameters required for (9)
can be determined using fitting measured data in Figs. 7 and 8
as kt = 0.0047, ki = 2.12, C p0 = 7.33, I0 = 0.4 A,
T0 = 25 C. Putting these device parameters into (12), the
theoretical apparent capacitances of the LED as a function
of current can be derived. The measured and calculated

CHEN et al.: ESTIMATION CARRIER CONCENTRATION OF LED VIA ELECTRICALTHERMAL CHARACTERISTICS

2261

the measurement is 7.9%, the maximum relative error

is 11.2%, and the minimum relative error is 3.5%. Therefore,
the results in Fig. 10 confirm the validity of the proposed
model.
IV. C ONCLUSION

Fig. 9. Measured and calculated apparent capacitance of LED mounted on

different heatsinks with current.

An estimation method for the carrier concentration of

LED devices based on the apparent capacitance is proposed
in this paper. The proposal consists of a practical procedure for
the required electrical measurements. The parameters obtained
in this fast procedure are applied to the proposed model to
predict the internal junction temperature and apparent
capacitance that cannot be easily accessed in practice.
The proposed model has been developed to predict the
effect caused by the package characteristics on the carrier
concentration inside white LED devices. The proposed model
is a multiphysical one that provides physical insights for
researchers and manufacturers.
R EFERENCES

Fig. 10. Measured and calculated carrier concentration of LED mounted on

different heatsinks with current.

apparent capacitancescurrent curves of the LED device

mounted on different heatsinks are shown in Fig. 9. The
agreement between measured and calculated is reasonably
good. The maximum relative error between measured and
calculated results is 12.4%, the minimum relative error
is 3.3%, and the average relative error is 6.3%.
It should be noted that the measured apparent capacitances
for the LED device increases fairly linearly with current
for a large range of current, because their kt and ki are
positive coefficients. The apparent capacitance increases with
increasing current, and the slope of the curve changes with the
heatsink thermal resistance. In particular, LED devices with
the low Rhs enable heat dissipation to be transferred out of
the junction, thereby keeping kt very low and minimizing the
temperature sensitivity of the apparent capacitance.
Based on (13), the calculated carrier concentration curves
are plotted with the measured results in Fig. 10 as functions
of the current of the LED. The carrier concentration decreases
with increasing current. According to (13), the series
resistance, ideality factor, and junction temperature increase
with injecting current, which cause carrier concentration
variation. The average deviation between the calculation and

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