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Department of Electronics and Radio Engineering Kyung Hee University Prof. Jae Su Yu 2010. 12. 15.
Contents
Introduction History of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) Theory of Radiative Recombination Electrical and Optical Properties of LEDs Temperature Characteristics of LEDs High Internal Efficiency Design Light Extraction Efficient Structures Packaging Summary
1
Applications of LEDs
Mobile & displays LED TVs Light generation
Traffic signals
Cost of Light
Cost of Light Incorporates Lifetime Source efficiency Energy cost Replacement cost of lamp/fixture Labor cost
Source: PHILIPS
History of LEDs
1907 Electroluminescence observed in Carborundum (SiC) H.J. Round 1923-1930 Comprehensive study of SiC electroluminescence and discussion of application for communications -O.V. Losev 1947 Discovery of transistor Bardeen and Brattain 1951 Explanation of SiC electroluminescence as carrier injection across a p/n junctionK. Lehovec, et al. 1955 Visible electroluminescence inGaPG.A. Wolff, et al. 1962 Demonstration of coherent visible light emission from direct bandgap GaAsP alloy semiconductors N. Holonyak and S.F. Bevacgua 1962-Present Continuing development and optimization of various direct bandgap ternary (GaAsP, AlGaAs) and quarternary (AlInGaP, AlInGaN) material systems for high performance LEDs RCA Monsanto, Hewlett Packard, Stanley, Toshiba, Toyoda Gosei, Nichia, and others
4
RGB LEDs
Source: Light-emitting diodes, Fred Schubert
Red LED: AlGaAs (660 nm), AlInGaP (644 nm) Green LED: GaP (555 nm, 570 nm), AlInGaP (562 nm), InGaN (525 nm) Blue LED: InGaN (450 nm) Cf. Orange LED: GaAsP (610 nm), AlInGaP (612 nm) Yellow LED: GaAsP (585 nm), AlInGaP (590 nm) UV LED: AlInGaN ( < 350 nm)
6
White LEDs
Commercialization - Blue LED + Yellow phosphors (YAG:Ce) - Red LED + Blue LED + Green LED - ZnSe blue LED + ZnSe substrate In progress - UV LED + White phosphors - One chip solution (monolithic white LED)
Source : LG Innotek
Efficiency of LEDs
Cree
- 2009, Nichia, 249 lm/W @20 mA, room temp. - 2010. 2. 4, Cree, 208 lm/W @ 350 mA, room temp. Color temp.: 4579 K
LED evolution
High power >1,000 lm, High luminous efficiency >100 lm/W, Low cost < $20/klm 1970 - 1992 Red LED 1993 - 1996 RGB LED 1997 - 2008 White LED 2009 ~ General Lighting Years
InGaN, AlGaInP 80
Mobile Phone
Progress in Technology
Blue active UV active
Tunability
Multi-color
Color
Bandgap eng Micro-phosphor Micro-pattern Nano-phosphor Nano-pattern Quantum dot 2D Photonic crystal - N non-sapphire Lift-off Wafer bonding
Efficiency
Quantum well
Energy saving
Resonant cavity - N Hybrid
Epitaxy
Integration
Chip
Power
Large chip
Array
Flexibility
Discrete PKG Chip-on-board Ceramic/Metal PKG Plastic optics Module PKG
Integration
Design
Organic PKG
2007
2009
2011
Source: Samsung Electro-Mechanics
10
LED Structure
LED module/system Car headlight/lamp, BLU, displays, etc Optic apparatus, system controller Package White LED
Packaging
RGB-UV LED
Packaging
LED chip
Chip Fabrication
Chip
Epitaxy
Back-End level 0
LED dies Back-grinding Dicing, Flip-chip Laser Lift-Off : LLO Die shaping LED dies-on-wafer
Front-End Litho./etching/metallization
Lateral LED structure Vertical LED structure
Back-End level 1
Bonding, Pick-and place Phosphor coating Packaging, Housing Source: Yole Development 12 Packaged LED LED lamp
13
Semiconductor materials
High-purity single crystal semiconductor materials cf) 10 angstroms thick, 12 inch wafer for Si Semiconductor: Semiconductor conductivity between those of metals and insulators Conductivity change over several orders of magnitude by adding controlled amounts of impurity atoms Development of the vast semiconductor industry
ZnO
Zinc oxides
Ex) AlxGa1-xAs: x is the fraction of the lower atomic number element component
14
15
At absolute zero degrees, electrons in the lower energy states (full: valence band), electrons in the upper energy states (empty: conduction band) Bandgap, Eg: between the top of the valence band and the bottom of the conduction band is the width of the forbidden energy band
16
2N, 2N, 6N, 2N, 6N states of type 1s, 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p: 2N, 6N states of type 3s, 3p
4 N electrons in the original isolated n=3 shells (2N in 3s states and 2N in 3p states) As the interacting spacing decreases, this band of 3s-3p levels contains 8N states As the distance between atoms approaches equilibrium interatomic spacing of silicon, this band splits into two band contains N states, as does the lower (valence) band Qualitatively how and why bands of allowed and forbidden energies formed in a crystal
17
18
T=0K
T>0K
The phosphorus atom without the donor electron is positively charged The donor atoms add electrons to the conduction band without creating holes in the valence band Donor impurity atom n-type semiconductor
T=0K
T>0K
The boron atom without the donor electron is negatively charged The acceptor atoms generate holes in the valence band without generating electrons in the conduction band Acceptor impurity atom p-type semiconductor
Adding controlled amounts of dopant atoms, either donors or acceptors, creates a material semiconductor
extrinsic
19
Direct bandgap
Indirect bandgap
20
where n and p are the excess electron and hole concentrations, respectively.
21
Recombination of carriers
- The recombination per unit time per unit volume can be written as
Rnp
Bimolecular rate equation The proportionality constant B is called the bimolecular recombination coefficient (typical values of 1011109 cm3/s for direct-gap IIIV semiconductors) - The recombination rate (R) at which the carrier concentration decreases
22
In a radiative recombination event, one photon with energy equal to the bandgap energy of the semiconductor is emitted During non-radiative recombination, the electron energy is converted to vibrational energy of lattice atoms, i.e. phonons. Thus, the electron energy is converted to heat. For obvious reasons, non-radiative recombination events are unwanted in light-emitting devices.
23
Defects include unwanted foreign atoms, native defects, dislocations, and any complexes of defects, foreign atoms, or dislocations deep levels or traps (luminescence killers) within the forbidden gap of the semiconductor
24
Auger recombination
Auger recombination
Energy becoming available through electronhole recombination (approximately Eg), is dissipated by the excitation of a free electron high into the conduction band, or by a hole deeply excited into the valence band. The highly excited carriers will subsequently lose energy by multiple phonon emission until they are close to the band edge
In the high-excitation limit in which the non-equilibrium carriers have a higher concentration than equilibrium carriers, the Auger rate equations reduce to
Auger recombination reduces the luminescence efficiency in semiconductors only at very high excitation intensity or at very high carrier injection currents. At lower carrier concentrations, the Auger recombination rate is very small and can be neglected for practical purposes. 25
reconstruction: Surface reconstruction: dangling bonds may also rearrange themselves and
form bonds between neighboring atoms in the same surface plane. This can lead to a locally new atomic structure with state energies different from bulk atomic states.
Assume that the illumination causes a uniform steady state generation rate G. The continuity equation for electrons is given by
26
Luminescence decreases in the near surface region Note that unipolar regions of a semiconductor device, e.g. the confinement regions, are not affected by surface recombination due to the lack of minority carriers. Several passivation techniques have been developed to reduce the surface recombination in semiconductors, including treatments with sulfur, and other chemicals
27
Internal quantum efficiency: the ratio of the number of light quanta emitted inside the semiconductor to the number of charge quanta undergoing recombination 28
Substrate Internal Quantum Efficiency : int. Electron-hole recombination Photon generation rate
LED epi-wafer
Die-on-wafer
LED die
- MQW optimization, n/p-AlGaN/GaN superlattices, low defect epi growth (ELO, PSS, GaN, ZnO, AlN sub.), nonpolar LED ohmic improvement, electron mobility improvement material growth, flip-chip
Cf. Internal quantum efficiency x light extraction efficiency= External quantum efficiency
- LED die shaping, LLO, flip-chip, highly reflecting mirrors, TCO - Phosphor material efficiency improvement, lens/optics improvement
Source: Yole Development 29
where Pint is the optical power emitted from the active region and I is the injection
current.
Photons emitted by the active region should escape from the LED die. In an ideal LED, all photons emitted by the active region are also emitted into free space. Such an LED has unity extraction efficiency. However, in a real LED, not all the power emitted from the active region is emitted into free space. Loss mechanism: 1. Reabsorbed in the substrate of the LED or by a metallic contacts, 2. Total internal reflection, also referred to as the trapped light phenomenon
The external quantum efficiency gives the ratio of the number of useful light particles to the number of injected charge particles. The power efficiency is defined as where IV is the electrical power provided to the LED. Informally, the power efficiency is also called the wall-plug efficiency.
31
i)
ii)
iii)
n n1 - Reflection coefficient: = 2 n + n : Fresnel loss 1 2 33% are reflected back into the semiconductor
c = sin 1
n1 n2
32
Any photon that is incident at an angle greater than 15.9 will be back into the semiconductor
Emission Spectrum
The emission intensity as a function of energy is proportional to the product
of
and
Using the requirement that electron and hole momenta are the same, the photon energy can be written as the joint dispersion relation
Using the joint dispersion relation, the joint density of states can be calculated and one obtains The distribution of carriers in the allowed bands is given by the Boltzmann 33 distribution, i.e.
For example, the theoretical room-temperature linewidth of a GaAs LED emitting at 870 nm is E = 46 meV or = 28 nm.
34
voltage, VD.
Barrier that free carriers must overcome in order to reach the neutral region of opposite conductivity type where NA and ND are the acceptor and donor concentrations, respectively, and ni is the intrinsic carrier concentration of the semiconductor.
NA
Depletion region
Under reverse-bias conditions, the diode current saturates and the saturation current is given by the factor preceding the exponential function in the Shockley equation. The diode IV characteristic can be written as
Under typical forward-bias conditions, the diode voltage is V >> kT / e, and thus [exp (eV/kT) 1] exp (eV/kT).
The exponent of the exponential function illustrates that the current strongly increases as the diode voltage approaches the diffusion voltage, i.e. V VD. The voltage at which the current strongly increases is called the threshold voltage and
36
The difference in energy between the Fermi level and the band edges can be inferred from
In highly doped semiconductors, the separation between the band edges and the Fermi level is small compared with the bandgap energy, i.e. (EC EF) << Eg on the n-type side and (EF EV) << Eg on the p-type side. Furthermore, these quantities depend only weakly (logarithmic dependence) on the doping concentration as inferred. Thus, the third and fourth summand can be neglected and the diffusion voltage can be approximated by the bandgap energy divided by the elementary charge
37
The diode IV
Assuming a shunt with resistance Rp(parallel to the ideal diode) and a series
resistance Rs(in series with the ideal diode and the shunt)
39
Efficiency Droop
Light emission intensity not linear with current At high driving current, reduction of efficiency: Efficiency droop Physical causes of droop still unexplained (many theories and research developed worldwide by all LED manufacturers) Current solution: One LED package multiple chip LED array Or large area chip Light output decreases and colour change with Heating: Thermal management necessary
40
Research Institute
Samsung/RPI
Solutions
- Polarization matching -> AlGaInN & EBL - Low carrier density for low Auger recombination -> DH (single QW) - Phononor defect-assisted Auger recombination -> Loss channel -> Thick SQW/MQW - Non-polar GaN LED - Hole mobility improvement -> Thin p-barrier - New structure -> GaN nanowire Radiative recombination reduction by In clustering -> Reduction of In clustering - In source treatment
41
Philips Lumileds Loss-channel Carrier overflow Electron overflow, Auger recombination Poor hole transport
more effective in IIIV nitride structures than in the IIIV phosphide structures
42
Escape efficiency of chip (ns= 2.5 for GaN) : 8% for air (no=1) : 11% for epoxy (no=1.5) : 16% for sapphire (no=1.77)
Source: KETI
43
Total internal reflection reduces the external efficiency significantly, in particular for LEDs consisting of high-refractive index materials. Assume that the angle of incidence in the semiconductor at the semiconductorair interface is given by . Then the angle of incidence of the refracted ray, , can be inferred from Snells law
where ns and nair are the refractive indices of the semiconductor and air,
respectively. The critical angle for total internal reflection is obtained using = 90 90
n1 n2 Light source
c
The refractive indices of semiconductors are usually quite high. For example, GaAs has a refractive index of 3.4. Thus, the critical angle for total internal reflection is quite small. In this case, we can use the approximation sinc c. The angle of total internal reflection cone. defines the light escape cone. 44
Surface area of the spherical cone with radius r in order to determine the total fraction of light that is emitted into the light escape cone.
Let us assume that light is emitted from a point-like source in the semiconductor with a total power of Psource. Then the power that can escape
where 4r2 is the entire surface area of the sphere with radius r.
Because the critical angle of total internal reflection for high-index materials is relatively small, the cosine term can be expanded into a power series. Neglecting higher-thansecond-order terms yields
45
where I() is the spectral light intensity (measured in W per nm per cm2) and A is the surface area of the sphere. The integration is carried out over the entire surface area. The index contrast between the light-emitting material and the surrounding material leads to a non-isotropic emission pattern. For high-index light-emitting materials with a planar surface, a lambertian emission pattern is obtained.
46
By using the lambertian emission pattern for Iair and using cos sin=(1/2)sin(2), the integral can be calculated to yield
semiconductor Fresnel reflection at the semiconductorair interface has been neglected. At normal incidence, the Fresnel
power transmittance is given by
Epoxy Encapsulants
The light extraction efficiency can be enhanced by using dome-shaped encapsulants with a large refractive index. As a result of the encapsulation, the angle of total internal reflection through the top surface of the semiconductor is increased (Nuese et al., 1969) Ratio of extraction efficiency with and without epoxy encapsulant is given by where c,epoxy and c,air are the critical angles for total internal reflection at the semiconductorepoxy and semiconductorair interface, respectively
Inspection of the figure yields that the efficiency of a typical semiconductor LED increases by a factor of 23 upon encapsulation with an epoxy having a refractive index of 1.5.
light is incident at an angle of approximately 90at the epoxyair interface due to the dome-shape of the epoxy No total internal reflection losses at the epoxyair interface.
48
MOCVD System
Exhaust Scrubbing system Glove box Vacuum system
Control Unit
Gas supply
49
Simple
Turbulent flow
Laminar flow
Horizontal reactor: Hot/cold side walls - Heterogeneous reaction hot side walls - Condensation: cold side walls
Vertical reactor - No reagent pre-reaction - Uniform flow of homogenous mixed reagents - Heater zone temp.: Linear temp. profile - Excellent growth uniformity - Large scale production - High precursor utilization efficiency
Two flow MOCVD: Vertical reactor S. Nakamura et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 58, 2021 (1991) 50
LT buffer layer
Strain absorption layer Nucleation layer AlN, GaN, InGaN, SiN, SiC etc.
52
1) High temperature preparation of the sapphire surface 2) Deposition of a low-temperature nucleation layer 3) High temperature epilayer growth
1)
3)
2)
53
Defects
nonradiative centers
: Sandia National Lab
Substrate
Jastrzebski, 1983: ELO Microchannel epitaxy (MCE), 1996 54
Confinement layer
Prevent the injection of hole into active region Highly doped p-AlGaN (difficult) [Solution) Superlattices
i-type n-type
55
solution
GaN
Ga N
Ga-faced
N-faced
Spontaneous polarization
Wurtzite [1000]
PSS
pyramidal PSS
57
p-pad
(-) ESD
Sapphire substrate
p-contact
Base material
Metal alloy
Loss in mesa etched area Local current crowding Low reliability Low thermal conductivity of sapphire Low power LED
Uniform current distribution Improved ESD Thermal conductivity High power LED
58
Photolithography Process
Softbake Hotplate or oven
Photoresist (Spin coater) Oxide layer Silicon PR UV Light Photomask patterns
1) PR coating 2) Exposure HMDS (hexamethyldisilane) adhesion Patterned oxides Hardbake Development of Etching region ITO Hotplate or oven patterns p-GaN
p-metal contact
u-GaN
3) Development
n-metal contact
Sapphire substrate
59
p-contact
p type GaN
pn junction
n-contact
Emission region
GaN LED
Ion +
R Volatile
product
Conventional LED
Wafers
Diffuser nossles Gas Pump Gas ICP (Oxford Plasmalab system 100) 60
PR
PR
Sapphire
Sapphire
Sapphire
Sapphire
Spin coating
epi
PR
scribing Si or scribing
Si or Si or
(9.9 eV)
Sapphire 248 nm
Laser pulse -> vaporization in interface (GaN/Sapphire) -> increasing Ionized vapor-> temporal evolution of plasma ->explosive shock wave ->separation
61
: .
M. O. HOLCOMB et al., Compound Semicinductor 7, 59 (2001) 62
light
~ ~
Ti/Al
Non textured
~ ~
Sapphire , 400 nm .
Flip-chip LED
64
: (2008)
4. p-GaN mask
LED Packaging
LED package
Plastic dome pn junction
SMD type
Lamp type
Electrodes
Lamp type
SMD type
: , , ,
(: Si) E-beam, X, (, , )
LED : , , , Lamp type: (mold) LED SMD (surface mount device) type : (PCB) , : , , TEC, : heatsink, slug
, Nov. 2008, pp. 16-21
66
LED Grinding/Lapping/Polishing/Dicing
LED grinding/lapping/polishing
: LOGITECH LED dicing: GaN scribing and substrate cutting - GaN scribing with high precision by laser or diamond techniques - Substrate cutting with less precision by diamond saws and (laser or diamond), break techniques Diamond saws
Laser
: JPSA
LED Package
LED: dissipation thermal stress degradation, , , , / reliabilty,
Cf. AlN 180 W/mK Cu 393 W/mK SiC 270 W/mK Si 140 W/mK Al 240 W/mK In 87 W/mK AnSn 57 W/mK
: OSRAM
68