Surface‐Plasmon‐Coupled Blue InGaN/GaN Micro‐LEDs with Oxide–Metal–Oxide Capping Layer Compatible to Chip Fabrication Process
ABSTRACT Blue InGaN/GaN micro‐light‐emitting diodes are promising for next‐generation displays, but their efficiency severely diminishes at dimensions below ∼5 µm due to dominant sidewall‐induced non‐radiative recombination. To overcome this fundamental limitation, we propose a multifunctional oxide‐metal‐oxide (OMO) strategy to simultaneously passivate sidewall defects and introduce a highly efficient radiative recombination pathway via localized surface plasmon (LSP)‐exciton coupling. This OMO configuration integrates conformal Al 2 O 3 layers for effective surface passivation with thermally dewetted Ag nanoparticles, which serve as plasmonic centers. By precisely aligning the LSP resonance to the blue emission wavelength (∼450 nm), the OMO‐integrated 4 × 4 µm 2 devices exhibit a 61% enhancement in micro‐photoluminescence and a further 27% increase in external quantum efficiency compared with atomic‐layer‐deposited Al 2 O 3 references. These results suggest that the plasmonic OMO sidewall architecture is a wafer‐scale process‐compatible and potentially scalable route toward high‐performance, ultra‐small micro‐LED display pixels for future display applications.
Authors
- Sung‐Un Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4834-0787)
- A. Y. Polyakov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6898-6126)
- J. O. Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8001-242X)
- Jiwon Park (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-9396-5353)
- Yong‐Ho Ra (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3303-136X)
- Sangbum Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2954-9075)
- M. Y. Choi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8070-7716)
- Seungjae Baek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2512-059X)
- Pil‐Kyu Jang
- In‐Hwan Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4566-9181)
- Yeong-Hoon Cho
- Ki Hoon Nam
- Seung Min Kwak
- Min‐Seok Lee
- Sang-Ik Lee
- Ohbin Kwon
- Taehwan Kim
- Lee‐Woon Jang
Institutions
- National University of Science and Technology (RU)
- Korea University (KR)
- National University of Science and Technology (ZW)
- Seoul Semiconductor (South Korea) (KR)
- Advanced Materials and Devices (United States) (US)
- Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KR)
- Jeonbuk National University (KR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Optical Materials
- Published
- 2026-06-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adom.71361
- Primary Topic
- GaN-based semiconductor devices and materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Research Foundation of Korea