Enhanced light extraction from a GaN-based green light-emitting diode with hemicylindrical linear grating structure

Significant enhancement in the light output from GaN-based green light-emitting diodes (LEDs) was achieved with a hemicylindrical grating structure on the top layer of the diodes. The grating structure was first optimized by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, which showed that the profile of the grating structure was critical for light extraction efficiency. It was found that the transmission efficiency of the 530 nm light emitted from the inside of the GaN LED increased for incidence angles between 23.58° and 60°. Such a structure was fabricated by electron-beam lithography and an etching method. The light output power from the LED was increased approximately 4.7 times compared with that from a conventional LED. The structure optimization is the key to the great increase in transmission efficiency. Furthermore, the light emitted from the edge of the LED units could be collected and extracted by the grating structures in adjacent LED units, thus enhancing the performance of the whole LED chip.