ELECTRICAL AND OPTICAL STUDIES ON MODELING AND FABRICATION OF GALLIUM NITRIDE (GaN) BASED OPTOELECTRONIC DEVICES
Open Access
- Author:
- Noor Elahi, Asim
- Graduate Program:
- Electrical Engineering
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 26, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Jerzy Ruzyllo, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Jian hsu, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Osama Awadelkarim, Major Field Member
Wenwu Cao, Outside Unit & Field Member
Tim Kane, Major Field Member
Kultegin Aydin, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- GaN Optoelectronic devices
GaN microLED
Colorful microLED
GaN based Schottky Diode
GaN based MESFFET
Colloidal Quantum Dots
Nanoporous
Vertical GaN based MESFET
MESFET on LEDs
Schottky diodes on LEDs - Abstract:
- The work in this dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part is related to the study of integration optoelectronic devices, such as Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs) and Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MESFETs), along with Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) on the same electronic chip. The second part of this dissertation is concerned with the electrical and optical modeling of gap-free microdisplay devices of based on gallium nitride, GaN, the optical modeling of nanophosphor-coupled porous layers for color conversion in III-Nitride microLED arrays, and also with some experimental studies on the photochemical and thermal stabilities of QDs materials that are integrated in the structure of GaN microLED devices. It is concluded from the first part of this work that the buffer layer located at the interface of unintentionally doped GaN layer and sapphire substrate has a strong effect on the forward current properties of lateral-type GaN Schottky diodes and plannar GaN metal-semiconductor-field-effect-transistors (MESFETs) grown on sapphire substrates (chapter 2). Experimental and simulation results have revealed that the interfacial region is acting as a channel in which the current passes in between the device metallic contacts because of the high conductivity that arises from a significant number of threading dislocations that are decorated by impurities due to the large lattice mismatches between GaN and sapphire. Owing to the presence of the interfacial regions, the lateral Schottky diodes exhibit high current densities but without change in their on-state-voltage, whereas the planar MESFETs could hardly reach cut-off or show saturation behavior. As a result, GaN-based vertical metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors(MESFETs) on commercial light-emitting-diode (LED) epi-wafers was fabricated and designed to overcome the latter problem (chapter 3). Also, the devices studied were simulated using charge transport model for better understanding of the current-voltage relationship. It was found that shrinking the size of the drain pillar helps reaching cut-off at much lower gate bias, even at high carrier concentration of unintentionally doped GaN and also with considerable leakage current caused by the Schottky barrier lowering. From the second part of the dissertation, it is disclosed that the isolation barrier region offers a better performance of a microLED microdisplay by minimizing the light cross-talk between the microLED pixels (chapter 4). It was found from the optical modeling results that the light cross-talk between the microLED pixels including the illuminating one in the isolation barrier planar structure is decreased significantly compared to the light cross-talk from all the pixels including the illuminating one in the non-planar air gap conventional structure of a microdisplay. The electrical simulation results reveal that the cross-talk current depends on the implanted ions energy, implanted ions dose and the width of the isolation barrier. The cross-talk current between the devices is decreased and the number of the affected pixels in the same row of a microdisplay is also reduced by the increase of the impurity concentration in the isolation barriers since the implanted ions are introducing deep level traps which results in current isolation between devices. Since the current microLED arrays are monochromatic emitting devices, nanophosphor-coupled nanoporous layers in III-nitride microLED arrays has been used to create colorful microLED arrays. The structure of those devices has been numerically analyzed along with its impacts on the application of microLED matrices in colorful display panels (chapter 5). It is concluded from the computational analysis carried out in this project that there remain some key challenges that need to be addressed in order to use such a structure in developing full-color miroLED display panels that simultaneously preserve the high-resolution and efficiency performances of microLED display devices. The extraction efficiency of both excitation (blue) and down-conversion (red) light from a nanophosphor-coupled LED devices have been demonstrated to drop drastically beyond specific thresholds when the porosity and thickness of the porous down-conversion layer increases. Additionally, it is found from the simulation that the cross-talk of down-converted light between adjacent micro-LED pixels is substantially higher compared to the excitation light cross-talk due to the location of the phosphors in the pore cavities and the resultant strong scattering by the surrounding nanopores. Furthermore, the instability of QDs is still a serious concern for the implementation of those emissive materials in the microLED display panels. Therefore, in Chapter 6, experimental studies on the thermal and photochemical stabilities of multicolored microLED display panels are presented. This chapter studied the thermal and photochemical stabilities of a 15 micrometer-thick layer of mixed red, green, and blue quantum dots produced via spin-cast deposition over a blue microLED matrix. This study also looked at the optical properties of QDs-based multicolored microLEDs. The results in this work provided us with a basic understanding of the ultimate limit of QD performance in microLED devices. The stability assessment results support and inspire the use of red, green, and blue QDs layers in blue microLED matrices to produce full-color microLED devices. Such research will aid in the design and production of high-efficiency, high-performance micro-LED display panels. Finally, Chapter 7 presents suggestions for the proposed future research in the field related to the scope of investigation reported in this thesis.