Enhancement of photo- and electro-luminescence of GaN-based LED structure grown on a nanometer-scaled patterned sapphire substrate

In this study, a 2 in. sized a highly periodic nanometer-scaled patterned sapphire substrate (NPSS) was fabricated using nanoimprint lithography (NIL) and inductively coupled plasma etching to improve the light-extraction efficiency of GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs). A blue LED structure was grown on the nanometer-scale patterned sapphire substrates, and the photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL) were measured to confirm the effectiveness of the nanometer-scaled patterns on sapphire. An improvement in luminescence efficiency was observed when NPSS was applied; 2 times stronger PL intensity and 2.8 times stronger EL intensity than the LED structure grown on the unpatterned sapphire wafers were measured. These results show highly periodic nanometer-scaled patterns create multi-photon scattering and effectively enhance the light-extraction efficiency of LEDs.

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