Design of near-unity transmittance dielectric/Ag/ITO electrodes for GaN-based light-emitting diodes

•We design high-transmittance dielectric/Ag/ITO electrodes for GaN-based light-emitting diodes.•We obtain transmittance of >94% even with a 12-nm-thick Ag layer.•Design rules for dielectric/Ag/ITO electrodes are generic for other color light-emitting devices.•We analyze transmittance of dielectric/Ag/ITO electrodes using complex phasor representations.•Dielectric/Ag/ITO electrodes will provide near-unity transmittance and ultralow sheet resistance.

We designed a near-unity transmittance dielectric/Ag/ITO electrode for high-efficiency GaN-based light-emitting diodes by using the scattering matrix method. The transmittance of an ultrathin metal layer, sandwiched between a dielectric layer and an ITO layer, was investigated as a function of the thickness and the optical constant of each constituent layer. Three different metals (Ag, Au, and Al) were examined as the metal layer. The analytical simulation indicated that the transmittance of a dielectric/metal/ITO multilayer film is maximized with an approximately 10-nm-thick Ag layer. Additionally, the transmittance also tends to increase as the refractive index of the upper dielectric layer increases. By tailoring the thickness of the dielectric layer and the ITO layer, the dielectric/Ag/ITO structure yielded a transmittance of 0.97, which surpasses the maximum transmittance (0.91) of a single ITO film. Furthermore, this extraordinary transmittance was present for other visible wavelengths of light, including violet and green colors. A complex phasor diagram model confirmed that the transmittance of the dielectric/metal/ITO multilayer film is influenced by the interference of reflected partial waves. These numerical findings underpin a rational design principle for metal-based multilayer films that are utilized as transparent electrodes for the development of efficient light-emitting diodes and solar cell devices.