Ultra-high brightness Micro-LEDs with wafer-scale uniform GaN-on-silicon epilayers

Haifeng Wu; Xiao Lin; Qin Shuai; Youliang Zhu; Yi Fu; Xiaoqin Liao; Yazhou Wang; Yizhe Wang; Chaowei Cheng; Yong Liu; Lei Sun; Xinyi Luo; Xiaoli Zhu; Liancheng Wang; Ziwei Li; Xiao Wang; Dong Li; Anlian Pan

doi:10.1038/s41377-024-01639-3

Go to Nature Website

Your Location：

Home >

Browse articles >

Ultra-high brightness Micro-LEDs with wafer-scale uniform GaN-on-silicon epilayers

Original Articles

- Ultra-high brightness Micro-LEDs with wafer-scale uniform GaN-on-silicon epilayers
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 13, Issue 12, Pages: 3041-3051(2024)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Key Laboratory for Micro-Nano Physics and Technology of Hunan Province, State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, Hunan Institute of Optoelectronic Integration, College of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan University, 410082 Changsha, China
  2.Innovision Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd, 215000 Suzhou, China
  3.Lattice Power (Jiangxi) Corp., 330029 Nanchang, China
  4.College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Central South University, 410083 Changsha, China
  5.Beijing Digital Optical Device IC Design Co. Ltd, 100015 Beijing, China
  6.School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan Normal University, 410081 Changsha, China
- Author bio：
  
  Dong Li (liidong@hnu.edu.cn)
  Anlian Pan (anlian.pan@hnu.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-024-01639-3
  CLC：
- Published：31 December 2024，
  
  Published Online：09 October 2024，
  
  Received：06 May 2024，
  
  Revised：08 September 2024，
  
  Accepted：14 September 2024
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Wu, H. F. et al. Ultra-high brightness Micro-LEDs with wafer-scale uniform GaN-on-silicon epilayers. Light: Science & Applications, 13, 3041-3051 (2024).
DOI：

Wu, H. F. et al. Ultra-high brightness Micro-LEDs with wafer-scale uniform GaN-on-silicon epilayers. Light: Science & Applications, 13, 3041-3051 (2024). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-024-01639-3.

摘要

Abstract

Owing to high pixel density and brightness

gallium nitride (GaN) based micro-light-emitting diodes (Micro-LEDs) are considered revolutionary display technology and have important application prospects in the fields of micro-display and virtual display. However

Micro-LEDs with pixel sizes smaller than 10 μm still encounter technical challenges such as sidewall damage and limited light extraction efficiency

resulting in reduced luminous efficiency and severe brightness non-uniformity. Here

we reported high-brightness green Micro-displays with a 5 μm pixel utilizing high-quality GaN-on-Si epilayers. Four-inch wafer-scale uniform green GaN epilayer is first grown on silicon substrate

which possesses a low dislocation density of 5.25 × 10

−2

small wafer bowing of 16.7 μm

and high wavelength uniformity (standard deviation STDEV

1 nm)

scalable to 6-inch sizes. Based on the high-quality GaN epilayers

green Micro-LEDs with 5 μm pixel sizes are designed with vertical non-alignment bonding technology. An atomic sidewall passivation method combined with wet treatment successfully addressed the Micro-LED sidewall damages and steadily produced nano-scale surface textures on the pixel top

which unlocked the internal quantum efficiency of the high-quality green GaN-on-Si epi-wafer. Ultra-high brightness exceeding 10

cd/m

(nits) is thus achieved in the green Micro-LEDs

marking the highest reported results. Furthermore

integration of Micro-LEDs with Si-based CMOS circuits enables the realization of green Micro-LED displays with resolution up to 1080 × 780

realizing high-definition playback of movies and images. This work lays the foundation for the mass production of high-brightness Micro-LED displays on large-size GaN-on-Si epi-wafers.

关键词

Keywords

references

Huang, Y. et al. Mini-LED, Micro-LED and OLED displays: present status and future perspectives.Light Sci. Appl.9, 105 (2020)..

Lee, V. W., Twu, N.&Kymissis, I. Micro‐LED technologies and applications.Inf. Disp.32, 16–23 (2016)..

Hsiang, E. L. et al. Prospects and challenges of mini‐LED, OLED, and micro‐LED displays.J. Soc. Inf. Disp.29, 446–465 (2021)..

Behrman, K.&Kymissis, I. Micro light-emitting diodes.Nat. Electron.5, 564–573 (2022)..

Lee, H. E. et al. Micro light‐emitting diodes for display and flexible biomedical applications.Adv. Funct. Mater.29, 1808075 (2019)..

Han, L. et al. Wafer-scale organic-on-Ⅲ-Ⅴ monolithic heterogeneous integration for active-matrix micro-LED displays.Nat. Commun.14, 6985 (2023)..

Park, J. et al. Electrically driven mid-submicrometre pixelation of InGaN micro-light-emitting diode displays for augmented-reality glasses.Nat. Photonics15, 449–455 (2021)..

Hammersley, S. et al. Effects of quantum well growth temperature on the recombination efficiency of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells that emit in the green and blue spectral regions.Appl. Phys. Lett.107, 132106 (2015)..

Liu, J. X. et al. Indium incorporation induced morphological evolution and strain relaxation of high indium content InGaN epilayers grown by metal–organic chemical vapor deposition.Cryst. Growth Des.17, 3411–3418 (2017)..

Wang, Q. et al. Carrier localization in strong phase-separated InGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-well dual-wavelength LEDs.J. Alloy. Compd.726, 460–465 (2017)..

Zhu, S. C. et al. Influence of quantum confined Stark effect and carrier localization effect on modulation bandwidth for GaN-based LEDs.Appl. Phys. Lett.111, 171105 (2017)..

Tsai, S. C., Lu, C. H.&Liu, C. P. Piezoelectric effect on compensation of the quantum-confined Stark effect in InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells based green light-emitting diodes.Nano Energy28, 373–379 (2016)..

Zhao, C. Y. et al. Low-efficiency-droop InGaN quantum dot light-emitting diodes operating in the "green gap".Photonics Res.8, 750–754 (2020)..

Zhou, H. J. et al. High resolution micro-LED arrays using Au–Sn flip-chip bonding.IEEE Trans. Electron Devices70, 3140–3144 (2023)..

Qi, L. H. et al. 848 ppi high-brightness active-matrix micro-LED micro-display using GaN-on-Si epi-wafers towards mass production.Opt. Express29, 10580–10591 (2021)..

Wu, M. C., Chung, M. C.&Wu, C. Y. 3200 ppi matrix-addressable blue MicroLED display.Micromachines13, 1350 (2022)..

Wu, Y. F. et al. Full-color realization of micro-LED displays.Nanomaterials10, 2482 (2020)..

Johar, M. A. et al. Universal and scalable route to fabricate GaN nanowire-based LED on amorphous substrate by MOCVD.Appl. Mater. Today19, 100541 (2020)..

Wu, Y. Z. et al. High-efficiency green micro-LEDs with GaN tunnel junctions grown hybrid by PA-MBE and MOCVD.Photonics Res.9, 1683–1688 (2021)..

Sun, Y. et al. Room-temperature continuous-wave electrically injected InGaN-based laser directly grown on Si.Nat. Photonics10, 595–599 (2016)..

Dadgar, A. Sixteen years GaN on Si.Phys. Status Solidi B252, 1063–1068 (2015)..

Tanaka, A. et al. Si complies with GaN to overcome thermal mismatches for the heteroepitaxy of thick GaN on Si.Adv. Mater.29, 1702557 (2017)..

Lee, M. et al. InGaN/GaN blue light emitting diodes using freestanding GaN extracted from a Si substrate.ACS Photonics5, 1453–1459 (2018)..

Chen, K. J. et al. GaN-on-Si power technology: devices and applications.IEEE Trans. Electron Devices64, 779–795 (2017)..

Liu, Y. B. et al. High-brightness InGaN/GaN micro-LEDs with secondary peak effect for displays.IEEE Electron Device Lett.41, 1380–1383 (2020)..

Liu, Y. B. et al. Analysis of size dependence and the behavior under ultrahigh current density injection condition of GaN-based Micro-LEDs with pixel size down to 3μm.J. Phys. D Appl. Phys.55, 315107 (2022)..

Yu, J. C. et al. Gallium nitride blue/green micro-LEDs for high brightness and transparency display.IEEE Electron Device Lett.44, 281–284 (2023)..

Smith, J. M. et al. Comparison of size-dependent characteristics of blue and green InGaN microLEDs down to 1μm in diameter.Appl. Phys. Lett.116, 071102 (2020)..

Yu, L. M. et al. Ultra-small size (1-20μm) blue and green micro-LEDs fabricated by laser direct writing lithography.Appl. Phys. Lett.121, 042106 (2022)..

Wong, M. S. et al. Size-independent peak efficiency of Ⅲ-nitride micro-light-emitting-diodes using chemical treatment and sidewall passivation.Appl. Phys. Express12, 097004 (2019)..

Son, K. R. et al. Investigation of sidewall passivation mechanism of InGaN-based blue microscale light-emitting diodes.Appl. Surf. Sci.584, 152612 (2022)..

Hang, S. et al. Artificially formed resistive ITO/p-GaN junction to suppress the current spreading and decrease the surface recombination for GaN-based micro-light emitting diodes.Opt. Express29, 31201–31211 (2021)..

Liu, Z. Y. et al. Etching-free pixel definition in InGaN green micro-LEDs.Light Sci. Appl.13, 117 (2024)..

Pandey, A. et al. An ultrahigh efficiency excitonic micro-LED.Nano Lett.23, 1680–1687 (2023)..

Wu, Y. P. et al. InGaN micro-light-emitting diodes monolithically grown on Si: achieving ultra-stable operation through polarization and strain engineering.Light Sci. Appl.11, 294 (2022)..

Zhao, X. Y. et al. Recent progress in long‐wavelength InGaN light‐emitting diodes from the perspective of epitaxial structure.Adv. Photonics Res.4, 2300061 (2023)..

Du, Y. et al. Review of highly mismatched Ⅲ-Ⅴ heteroepitaxy growth on (001) silicon.Nanomaterials12, 741 (2022)..

Wang, A. M. et al. High external quantum efficiency green light emitting diodes on stress-manipulated AlNO buffer layers.IEEE Photonics J.14, 8234405 (2022)..

Wang, X. L. et al. 3.5× 3.5 μm2GaN blue micro-light-emitting diodes with negligible sidewall surface nonradiative recombination.Nat. Commun.14, 7569 (2023)..

Ji, X. X. et al. The improvement of bonding metal layers for high resolution micro-LED display application.Appl. Phys. Lett.123, 241102 (2023)..

Gao, Z., Romero, M.&Calle, F. Etching of AIGaN/GaN HEMT structures by Cl2-based ICP. InProc. 2013 Spanish Conference on Electron Devices, 29–32 (IEEE, 2013)..

Wang, L. C. et al. Interface and transport properties of metallization contacts to flat and wet-etching roughed N-polar n-type GaN.ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces5, 5797–5803 (2013)..

Sheen, M. et al. Highly efficient blue InGaN nanoscale light-emitting diodes.Nature608, 56–61 (2022)..

Wong, M. S. et al. High efficiency of Ⅲ-nitride micro-light-emitting diodes by sidewall passivation using atomic layer deposition.Opt. Express26, 21324–21331 (2018)..

Ji, X. X. et al. 3400 PPI active-matrix monolithic blue and green micro-LED display.IEEE Trans. Electron Devices70, 4689–4693 (2023)..

Li, P. P. et al. Hybrid tunnel junction enabled independent junction control of cascaded InGaN blue/green micro-light-emitting diodes.Opt. Express31, 7572–7578 (2023)..

Shin, J. et al. Vertical full-colour micro-LEDs via 2D materials-based layer transfer.Nature614, 81–87 (2023)..

Day, J. et al. Ⅲ-Nitride full-scale high-resolution microdisplays.Appl. Phys. Lett.99, 031116 (2011)..

Zhang, L. et al. Wafer‐scale monolithic hybrid integration of Si‐based IC and Ⅲ–Ⅴ epi‐layers—a mass manufacturable approach for active matrix micro‐LED micro‐displays.J. Soc. Inf. Disp.26, 137–145 (2018)..

Templier, F. GaN-based emissive microdisplays: a very promising technology for compact, ultra-high brightness display systems.J. Soc. Inf. Disp.24, 669–675 (2016)..

Views

Downloads

CSCD

Alert me when the article has been cited

Submit

Tools

Publicity Resources

No data

Related Author

No data

Related Institution

No data

⁰