Membrane thickness dependence of the suspended mini-LED on visible light communication

This study proposes a suspended thin-film blue light emitting diode (LED) device using backside processing to enhance the performance and light extraction efficiency (LEE) of silicon-based GaN LEDs. Photolithography, deep reactive ion etching (DRIE), and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) techniques were used to completely remove the silicon substrate, creating three LEDs with different GaN epitaxial layer thicknesses (5, 4.5, 4 µm). Compared to LEDs without ICP etching, the 5-minute etched LED exhibited superior optoelectronic performance, with current increasing from 75 mA to 99 mA at 3.5 V and peak light intensity 1.3 times higher at 50 mA. The 10-minute etched LED excelled in light-emitting efficiency and visible light communication (VLC), with a clearer eye diagram, highlighting its potential for high-performance VLC applications.