A droop-free nitride light-emitting diode (LED) with the capacity to operate beyond the “green gap” has been a subject of intense scientific and engineering interest. While several properties of nanowires on silicon make them promising for use in LED development, the high aspect ratio of individual nanowires and their laterally discontinuous features limit phonon transport and device performance. Here, we report on the monolithic integration of metal heat-sink and droop-free InGaN/GaN quantum-disks-in-nanowire LEDs emitting at ~710 nm. The reliable operation of our uncooled nanowire-LEDs (NW-LEDs) epitaxially grown on molybdenum was evident in the constant-current soft burn-in performed on a 380 µm × 380 µm LED. The square LED sustained 600 mA electrical stress over an eight-hour period, providing stable light output at maturity without catastrophic failure. The absence of carrier and phonon transport barriers in NW-LEDs was further inferred from current-dependent Raman measurements (up to 700 mA), which revealed the low self-heating. The radiative recombination rates of NW-LEDs between room temperature and 40 ^oC was not limited by Shockley–Read–Hall recombination, Auger recombination, or carrier leakage mechanisms, thus realizing droop-free operation. The discovery of reliable, droop-free devices constitutes significant progress toward the development of nanowires for practical applications. Our monolithic approach realized a high-performance device that will revolutionize the way high power, low-junction-temperature LED lamps are manufactured for solid-state lighting and for applications in high-temperature harsh environment.

High-quality nitride materials grown on scalable and low-cost metallic substrates are considerably attractive for high-power light emitters. We demonstrate here, for the first time, the high-power red (705 nm) InGaN/GaN quantum-disks (Qdisks)-in-nanowire light-emitting diodes (LEDs) self-assembled directly on metal substrate. The LEDs exhibited a low turn-on voltage of ∼2 V without efficiency droop up to injection current of 500 mA (1.6 kA/cm²) at ∼5 V. This is achieved through the direct growth and optimization of high-quality nanowires on titanium (Ti) coated bulk polycrystalline-molybdenum (Mo) substrates. We performed extensive studies on the growth mechanisms, obtained high-crystal-quality nanowires, and confirmed the epitaxial relationship between the cubic titanium nitride (TiN) transition layer and the hexagonal nanowires. The growth of nanowires on all-metal stack of TiN/Ti/Mo enables simultaneous implementation of n-metal contact, reflector, and heat sink, which greatly simplifies the fabrication process of high-power light emitters. Our work ushers in a practical platform for high-power nanowires light emitters, providing versatile solutions for multiple cross-disciplinary applications that are greatly enhanced by leveraging on the chemical stability of nitride materials, large specific surface of nanowires, chemical lift-off ready layer structures, and reusable Mo substrates.

We present a detailed study of the effects of dangling bond passivation and the comparison of different sulfide passivation processes on the properties of InGaN/GaN quantum-disk (Qdisk)-in-nanowire based light emitting diodes (NW-LEDs). Our results demonstrated the first organic sulfide passivation process for nitride nanowires (NWs). The results from Raman spectroscopy, photoluminescence (PL) measurements, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) showed that octadecylthiol (ODT) effectively passivated the surface states, and altered the surface dynamic charge, and thereby recovered the band-edge emission. The effectiveness of the process with passivation duration was also studied. Moreover, we also compared the electro-optical performance of NW-LEDs emitting at green wavelength before and after ODT passivation. We have shown that the Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH) non-radiative recombination of NW-LEDs can be greatly reduced after passivation by ODT, which led to a much faster increasing trend of quantum efficiency and higher peak efficiency. Our results highlighted the possibility of employing this technique to further design and produce high performance NW-LEDs and NW-lasers.

The photoinduced entropy of InGaN/GaN p-i-n nanowires was investigated using temperature-dependent (6–290 K) photoluminescence. We also analyzed the photocarrier dynamics in the InGaN active regions using time-resolved photoluminescence. An increasing trend in the amount of generated photoinduced entropy of the system above 250 K was observed, while we observed an oscillatory trend in the generated entropy of the system below 250 K that stabilizes between 200 and 250 K. Strong exciton localization in indium-rich clusters, carrier trapping by surface defect states, and thermodynamic entropy effects were examined and related to the photocarrier dynamics. We conjecture that the amount of generated photoinduced entropy of the system increases as more non-radiative channels become activated and more shallowly localized carriers settle into deeply localized states; thereby, additional degrees of uncertainty related to the energy of states involved in thermionic transitions are attained.

Magnetron sputter epitaxy (MSE) offers several advantages compared to alternative GaN epitaxy growth methods, including mature sputtering technology, the possibility for very large area deposition, and low-temperature growth of high-quality electronic-grade GaN. In this article, we review the basics of reactive sputtering for MSE growth of GaN using a liquid Ga target. Various target biasing schemes are discussed, including direct current (DC), radio frequency (RF), pulsed DC, and high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS). Examples are given for MSE-grown GaN thin films with material quality comparable to those grown using alternative methods such as molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE), metal–organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE). In addition, successful GaN doping and the fabrication of practical devices have been demonstrated. Beyond the planar thin film form, MSE-grown GaN nanorods have also been demonstrated through self-assembled and selective area growth (SAG) method. With better understanding in process physics and improvements in material quality, MSE is expected to become an important technology for the growth of GaN.

In this paper, we describe ultraviolet-A (UV-A) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) emitting at 325 nm based on a highly uniform structure of quantum-confined AlGaN quantum-disk nanowires (NWs). By incorporating a 20 nm TaN interlayer between a Ti pre-orienting layer and the silicon substrate, we eliminated the potential barrier for carrier injection and phonon transport, and inhibited the formation of interfacial silicide that led to device failure. Compared to previous reports on metal substrate, we achieved a 16 × reduction in root-mean-square (RMS) roughness, from 24 nm to 1.6 nm, for the samples with the Ti/TaN metal-bilayer, owing to the effective diffusion barrier characteristic of TaN. This was confirmed using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). We achieved a considerable increase in the injection current density (up to 90 A/cm²) compared to our previous studies, and an optical power of 1.9 μW for the 0.5 × 0.5 mm² NWs-LED. This work provides a feasible pathway for both a reliable and stable UV-A device operation at elevated current injection, and eventually towards low-cost production of UV devices, leveraging on the scalability of silicon substrates.