Stress Reduction and Enhanced Extraction Efficiency of GaN-Based LED Grown on Cone-Shape-Patterned Sapphire

High-quality InGaN-GaN film was grown on a cone-shape-patterned sapphire substrate (CSPSS) by using metal-oganic chemical vapor deposition. The growth mode of GaN on CSPSS was similar to that of the epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG), because the growth, in the initial stage, proceeds only on flat basal sapphire substrate and there is no preferential growth plane on the cone region. An analysis of X-ray diffraction showed a shorter lattice constant of 5.1877 Aring along the c-axis for the GaN thin films grown on CSPSS, compared to 5.1913 A for the samples grown on a conventional sapphire substrate (CSS). This is because the ELOG-like mode of the GaN layer over the cone-shaped region results in less lattice mismatch and incoherency between the GaN layer and the sapphire substrate. The output power of a sideview light-emitting diode (LED) grown on CSPSS was estimated to be 7.3 mW at a forward current of 20 mA, which is improved by 34% compared to that of an LED grown on CSS. The significant enhancement in output power is attributed to both the increase of the extraction efficiency, resulted from the increase in photon escaping probability due to enhanced light scattering at the CSPSS, and the improvement of the crystal quality due to the reduction of dislocation.