RESEARCH ARTICLE | MAY 29 2015
Design analysis of phosphor-free monolithic white light-
emitting-diodes with InGaN/ InGaN multiple quantum wells
on ternary InGaN substrates
Yu Kee Ooi; Jing Zhang
AIP Advances 5, 057168 (2015)
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4922008
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16 November 2023 06:23:12
AIP ADVANCES 5, 057168 (2015)
Design analysis of phosphor-free monolithic white
light-emitting-diodes with InGaN/ InGaN multiple quantum
wells on ternary InGaN substrates
Yu Kee Ooia and Jing Zhangb
Department of Electrical and Microelectronics Engineering, Rochester Institute
of Technology, Rochester, New York 14623, USA
(Received 25 March 2015; accepted 18 May 2015; published online 29 May 2015)
Phosphor-free monolithic white light emitting diodes (LEDs) based on InGaN/
InGaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) on ternary InGaN substrates are proposed
and analyzed in this study. Simulation studies show that LED devices composed
of multi-color-emitting InGaN/ InGaN quantum wells (QWs) employing ternary
InGaN substrate with engineered active region exhibit stable white color illumination
with large output power (∼ 170 mW) and high external quantum efciency (EQE)
(∼ 50%). The chromaticity coordinate for the investigated monolithic white LED de-
vices are located at (0.30, 0.28) with correlated color temperature (CCT) of ∼ 8200 K
at J = 50 A/cm2. A reference LED device without any nanostructure engineering
exhibits green color emission shows that proper engineered structure is essential to
achieve white color illumination. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that high-
efciency and cost-eective phosphor-free monolithic white LED is feasible by the
use of InGaN/ InGaN MQWs on ternary InGaN substrate combined with nanostruc-
16 November 2023 06:23:12
ture engineering, which would be of great impact for solid state lighting. C 2015 Au-
thor(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4922008]
Tremendous advancement in III-nitride light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) over the last two de-
cades has prompted LEDs as promising candidate in substituting traditional lamps in myriad
lighting applications.1–4 Specically, solid state lighting based on white color LEDs is considered
as the next-generation illumination system due to the high efciency and reliable device perfor-
mance. Conventionally, InGaN-based blue-emitting LED is coated with yellow phosphor to convert
part of the blue emission to longer wavelength (λ) for white light generation.1,2,4,5 However, this
phosphor-converted (pc) white LEDs exhibit large Stokes loss (∼10 to ∼30%) due to the wavelength
down-conversion.5 Additionally, those pc-LEDs suer from stability issues such as phosphor-aging,
packaging cost issues, and dependency on the efciency of GaN-based LEDs.5 Meanwhile, “mul-
tichip” approach2 has also been proposed for white-color generation by combining red, green and
blue (RGB) monochromatic LED chips, which demonstrates several signicant advantages over
pc-LEDs. However, this approach suers from signicantly increased cost from additional process-
ing steps for chips integration and the need of driver circuitry.
Thus, the pursuit of high-efciency, cost-eective, and monolithic white LEDs has attracted
tremendous attentions.6–19 Previous works have reported the possibility of fabricating phosphor-free
monolithic white LED by stacking multi-color-emitting InGaN/ GaN quantum wells (QWs) on
GaN substrate.6–10 However, it is very challenging to incorporate high In-content into InGaN/ GaN
QWs on GaN substrate which is critical for green and yellow emission wavelengths due to charge
separation issue from large lattice-mismatch strain.20,21 On the other hand, nanostructure engineer-
ing approaches such as the use of quantum dots,11,12 nanowires,13–15 pyramids16,17 and patterned
b Electronic mail:
[email protected].
2158-3226/2015/5(5)/057168/7 5, 057168-1 © Author(s) 2015
057168-2 Y. K. Ooi and J. Zhang AIP Advances 5, 057168 (2015)
substrates18,19 have also been pursued previously to achieve white LEDs. Nevertheless, these
methods all require complex fabrication processes which are challenging to be implemented into
large scale production. Therefore, alternative cost-eective and high-efciency solutions are in great
demand for white LEDs.
Recent studies have pointed out that the use of ternary InGaN substrates22,23 for InGaN/ In-
GaN QW LEDs could lead to promising light output covering the entire visible spectrum includ-
ing green and yellow, which demonstrated ∼3 times enhanced spontaneous emission rate for
λ ∼ 450 nm – 645 nm than those conventional InGaN/ GaN QWs on GaN substrates. Additionally,
experimental works reporting successful growth of high In-content ternary InGaN substrate24–28
would enable the growth of InGaN LEDs on ternary substrate. Specically, recent works by Ho-
bauer and coworkers have demonstrated the growth of high quality InGaN lms on sapphire, with
In-content up to 40% and lm thickness up to 1 µm,27,28 using Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE).
Thus, it is anticipated that those ternary substrates would be suitable for InGaN-based green and
yellow emitters, which would be of great interest for feasible monolithic white LEDs.
In this letter, we proposed and investigated the use of ternary InGaN substrates for high-
efciency monolithic tunable white LEDs. Nanostructure engineering has been conducted to the
multiple QWs (MQWs) active region on ternary substrate to achieve white color illumination.
Simulation studies show that the proposed and optimized white LED device structure exhibits
∼2 times larger external quantum efciency (EQE)7 and higher light output power as compare
to conventional InGaN/ GaN white LEDs on GaN substrates.6–10 The chromaticity coordinates
and correlated color temperature (CCT) of the proposed white LEDs on ternary substrates also
demonstrated comparable results with those nanostructured white LEDs.14,15
Note that the strain in InGaN/ InGaN QW on ternary InGaN substrate can be reduced by up
16 November 2023 06:23:12
to ∼75% compared to conventional InGaN/ GaN QW on GaN substrate as pointed out by previous
work.23 The signicantly decreased strain resulted in substantial reduction of piezoelectric polar-
ization elds and internal electrostatic elds in the QWs, and consequently led to suppression of
the charge separation eect. Thus, the ternary In0.15Ga0.85N substrate has been employed in this
study for all the proposed LEDs. The characteristics of the proposed InGaN/ InGaN MQWs white
LEDs on In0.15Ga0.85N substrate are analyzed with APSYS.29 The band structures and radiative
recombination rates are solved self-consistently with k•p quantum mechanical solver by taking into
consideration carrier transport eect, valence band mixing, strain eect, spontaneous and piezo-
electric polarizations, and carrier screening eect. All band parameters used in the simulation were
taken from Refs. 30, 31. The band oset ratio (∆Ec:∆Ev) for all layers was set as 0.7:0.3, and the
surface charge density was set as 50% of the theoretical values.32 The operating temperature was
assumed to be 300 K.
Two monolithic white LED structures with vertical injection conguration shown in Fig. 1
[LED (A) and LED (B)] are proposed and studied in this letter. The LED device without any
nanostructure engineering [LED (C)] is used as a reference. LED (A) is composed of two
blue-emitting QWs and two yellow-emitting QWs; while LED (B) and LED (C) are composed
FIG. 1. Schematics of monolithic white LEDs consist of 3 nm InGaN MQWs with 6 nm In0.15Ga0.85N QBs on ternary
In0.15Ga0.85N substrate. 1 nm thin GaN barrier is inserted to surround the blue QW located closer to p-region for LED (A)
and LED (B). LED (C) without thin barriers is used as a reference device.
057168-3 Y. K. Ooi and J. Zhang AIP Advances 5, 057168 (2015)
16 November 2023 06:23:12
FIG. 2. Simulated (a) conduction band structures and electron concentrations and (b) valence band structures and hole
concentrations of InGaN/ InGaN MQWs white LEDs on ternary InGaN substrates at J = 100 A/cm2.
of three blue-emitting QWs and one yellow-emitting QW. The 0.4-µm thick n-In0.15Ga0.85N layer
(n-doping = 5 × 1018 cm−3) is used as the substrate of the devices, followed by four periods of 3-nm
InxGa1−xN QWs (x = 0.2 or 0.25 for blue emission and x = 0.38 for yellow emission) with 6-nm
In0.15Ga0.85N quantum barriers (QBs), and a 200-nm p-In0.15Ga0.85N (p-doping = 1.2 × 1018 cm−3)
layer. The background doping in the active region is assumed as n = 5 × 1016 cm−3. For both LED
(A) and LED (B), a 1-nm thin GaN barrier has been inserted to surround the blue-emitting QW (in
this case, the 6-nm In0.15Ga0.85N QB is replaced with 5-nm In0.15Ga0.85N QB and 1-nm GaN thin
barrier) located closer to the p-InGaN layer for improved carrier connement in the blue-emitting
QWs.
As a result, Fig. 2 shows the simulated band structures and carrier distributions of LED (A),
LED (B) and LED (C) at J = 100 A/cm2. Fig. 2(a) plots the conduction bands and electron
concentrations, and Fig. 2(b) plots the valence bands and hole concentrations for all devices. The
corresponding bandgaps of GaN, In0.15Ga0.85N, In0.2Ga0.8N, In0.25Ga0.75N, and In0.38Ga0.62N are
calculated as 3.437 eV, 2.839 eV, 2.654 eV, 2.475 eV and 2.044 eV respectively. As can be observed
from Fig. 2, majority of the carriers are populating the yellow QW for LED (C) with peak elect-
ron and hole concentrations of 82 × 1018 cm−3 and 114 × 1018 cm−3 respectively while negligible
amount of carriers are populating the blue QWs. Since the blue QW has smaller eective barrier
height (hc, hv) compared to the yellow QW, the latter forms a strong local minimum in the MQWs
057168-4 Y. K. Ooi and J. Zhang AIP Advances 5, 057168 (2015)
FIG. 3. Simulated spontaneous emission spectra of InGaN/ InGaN MQWs white LEDs on ternary InGaN substrates at
J = 100 A/cm2.
16 November 2023 06:23:12
active region, which is localizing carriers strongly and leading to poor carrier concentrations in the
blue QWs. The insertion of the GaN thin barriers [the case of LED (A) and LED (B)] solves this
issue by increasing hc of electrons from 259 meV in LED (C) to 490 meV in both LED (A) and LED
(B), and hv of holes from 223 meV in LED (C) to 371 meV in both LED (A) and LED (B). As a
result, the carrier population in the blue-emitting QWs has been enhanced signicantly as shown in
Fig. 2.
The peak electron and hole concentrations in the blue-emitting QW is 40 × 1018 cm−3 and
48 × 1018 cm−3 respectively for LED (A) and 32 × 1018 cm−3 and 41 × 1018 cm−3 respectively for
LED (B), and the peak electron and hole concentrations in the yellow-emitting QW is
30 × 1018 cm−3 and 54 × 1018 cm−3 respectively for LED (A) and 27 × 1018 cm−3 and 45 × 1018 cm−3
respectively for LED (B). This balanced carrier concentration in the MQWs active region is ex-
pected to lead to balanced light output in both blue and yellow spectral regimes, which would
enable proper color-mixing to achieve white illumination.
To demonstrate the optical properties of the proposed white LEDs, Fig. 3 plots the simulated
spontaneous emission spectral of LEDs (A), (B) and (C) at J = 100 A/cm2. The insertion of the
GaN thin barrier eectively leads to dual-wavelength emissions in blue and yellow. Specically,
both LEDs (A) and (B) show the blue peak spontaneous emission wavelength (λpeak) ∼ 480 nm due
to the enhanced carrier populations in the blue QWs. The yellow peak for both LEDs is obtained
with λpeak ∼ 580 nm. Note that as a comparison, LED (C) shows a single green emission peak with
λpeak ∼ 560 nm and the full width half maximum (FWHM) ∼ 62 nm, which can be attributed from
the recombination of excited states since considerably large amount of carriers are collected by the
yellow QW. The spontaneous emission spectrum from LED (C) also proves that it is very important
to have the GaN thin barrier insertion in order to achieve possible white color illumination. Further-
more, the design of the MQWs active region from LEDs (A) and (B) shows exibility in terms of
combining the blue and the yellow QWs, which would be ideal for large scale device manufacturing
purpose.
The simulated light output power, I-V characteristic and relative EQE of the investigated mono-
lithic white LEDs as a function of current density (J) are shown in Fig. 4. Here, the extraction
efciency, monomolecular coefcient A, and Auger coefcient C are employed as 70%, 106 s−1, and
1034 cm6s−1, respectively.32 In general, all three LEDs on ternary InGaN substrate exhibit promising
057168-5 Y. K. Ooi and J. Zhang AIP Advances 5, 057168 (2015)
16 November 2023 06:23:12
FIG. 4. Simulated (a) light output power and I-V characteristics and (b) relative EQE for InGaN/ InGaN MQWs white LEDs
on ternary InGaN substrates as a function of current density at room temperature.
light output power and EQE due to signicantly reduced internal electrostatic eld. Supercially,
the light output power reaches ∼134 mW, ∼170 mW and ∼139 mW for LED (A), LED (B) and LED
(C) respectively at J = 250 A/cm2 as shown in Fig. 4(a). Note that the increased turn on voltage
(∼ 2.7 V) for both LEDs (A) and (B) are due to increased series resistance as compared with LED
(C) (∼ 2.1 V), which is attributed from the larger barrier height from the insertion of the GaN thin
barrier. From the relative EQE plot in Fig. 4(b), it shows that both LEDs (A) and (B) on ternary
substrate have the peak EQE (∼ 50%) with J ∼ 10 – 15 A/cm2, which is signicantly higher than that
of InGaN/ GaN monolithic white LED on conventional GaN substrate (EQE ∼ 20%).7 Despite the
fact that LED (C) shows a higher EQE peak (∼ 68%) at J ∼ 25 A/cm2, it has a much severe droop
towards higher current densities, which is attributed from poorer carrier connement without any of
the GaN thin barrier design. More importantly, only green color illumination can be obtained from
LED (C) while white color illumination can be achieved by LEDs (A) and (B) with comparable
output power and EQE.
Fig. 5 shows the locations of the light emission for the investigated monolithic white LEDs on
ternary substrate on the Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage (CIE) 1931 color space chroma-
ticity diagram at various injection current levels. As indicated on the CIE diagram, the coordinates
for LED (A) and LED (B) are essentially in the white region at various current injection levels while
the coordinate for LED (C) is located in the green region. This again implies that the insertion of
057168-6 Y. K. Ooi and J. Zhang AIP Advances 5, 057168 (2015)
16 November 2023 06:23:12
FIG. 5. Color coordinates of the light emission for the investigated monolithic InGaN/ InGaN MQW white LEDs on the CIE
1931 color space chromaticity diagram from 50 A/cm2 to 150 A/cm2. The CIE coordinates for InGaN/ GaN white LED on
GaN substrate9 and nanowire white LED,14,15 at 50 A/cm2 are also shown in the gure.
thin GaN barrier surrounding the blue QW adjacent to the yellow QW is essential for white color
generation. The CIE coordinates are relatively constant, approximately (0.30, 0.28), for LED (A)
with current density up to 150 A/cm2 whereas for LED (B), it moves from (0.30, 0.28) to (0.26,
0.22) as current increases from 50 A/cm2 to 150 A/cm2. Both LED (A) and LED (B) exhibit minor
blue-shift with increased injection current due to quantum conned Stark eect.
For the investigated monolithic white LED structures in this work, the corresponding CCTs at
50 A/cm2 are obtained as ∼ 8200 K for LED (A) and ∼ 8800 K for LED (B), which are appropriate
for general illumination purpose.1,5 The CCT values from LEDs (A) and (B) are also comparable
with those of nanostructure white LEDs (∼ 4500 - 6500 K).14,15 For comparison purpose, Fig. 5
also summarizes the CIE coordinates for InGaN/ GaN-based white LED on GaN substrate [(0.32,
0.41) at 50 A/cm2]9 and nanostructure white LEDs [(0.35, 0.37) and (0.29, 0.37) respectively for
dot-in-wire LED14 and disk-in-wire LED15 at 50 A/cm2]. These results suggest that our proposed
monolithic white InGaN/ InGaN MQW LED structures can achieve stable white color illumination
and promising efciency, while only require standard device fabrication processes.
In summary, high-efciency phosphor-free monolithic white LEDs with InGaN/ InGaN QWs
on ternary InGaN substrates are proposed and analyzed. Simulation studies show that by integrating
057168-7 Y. K. Ooi and J. Zhang AIP Advances 5, 057168 (2015)
blue- and yellow-emitting InGaN/ InGaN MQWs with engineered structures on ternary InGaN
substrate, large output power (∼170 mW) and high EQE (∼ 50%) are achieved for stable white illu-
mination at various current injections at room temperature. The results also demonstrate the impor-
tance of nanostructure engineering for InGaN/ InGaN MQWs LEDs on ternary InGaN substrate for
white light emission. The chromaticity coordinates around (0.30, 0.28) and CCT ∼ 8200 K can be
obtained at J = 50 A/cm2 for the tunable white LED structures with engineered active region in this
study. Thus, it is expected that the monolithic InGaN/ InGaN MQW white LED device based on In-
GaN ternary substrates would serve as a promising candidate for high-efciency and cost-eective
solid state lighting applications. Further experimental studies to investigate the optimized structure
as well as the optimized growth is required for enabling the advantages presented in this study for
InGaN/ InGaN MQWs white LEDs on ternary InGaN substrate.
This work is supported by the Kate Gleason endowed professorship fund from Rochester
Institute of Technology.
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