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Compromise between illumination performance and modulation bandwidth for micro-size white light-emitting diode by selecting injected current

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Abstract

The GaN-based white light-emitting diode (LED), in which 4 \(\times\) 4 arrayed micro-pixels are packaged using chip-on-board technique, is fabricated for both illumination and visible light communication. The features of the electrical, optical, and communication characteristics related to the injected current are analysed. It is implied that the saturated injected current could be the optimised injected current for both illumination and communication, if the highest light-output power (LOP) and the largest 3-dB modulation bandwidth are desired. However, in order to improve the electro-optic conversion efficiency (EOC) and the lifetime for practical devices, the huge current density should be avoided and a small injected current should be better. In our experiments, if the injected current is reduced from the saturated injected current of 130 mA (4597.8 A/\(\hbox {cm}^2\)) to 20 mA (707.4 A/\(\hbox {cm}^2\)), the EOC and the lifetime of 95% LOP are improved from 3.1 to 11.4% and extended from 16.5 to 1560 h, respectively, while the total LOP of arrayed pixels and the 3-dB modulation bandwidth are still good values. The characteristics before and after the ageing process with different injected current are also discussed. It is shown that the ageing process has permanent degradation of the electrical and optical performance but has little effects on the modulation bandwidth of the 60-μm-diameter micro-LEDs in the experiments. Moreover, the small injected current leads to minimal degradation and would be the preferred choice.

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Funding

This work is supported by the Science and Technology Program of Guangdong Province (2016A010103011 and 2017A050501006); the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2018A030310373); the Pearl River S&T Nova Program of Guangzhou (201610010038); the Science and Technology Programs of Guangzhou City (201704020038 and 201905010001); the Science and Technology Development Special Fund Projects of Zhongshan City (2019AG014, 2017F2FC0002 and 2017A1009); and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Engineering Research Center for Optoelectronics of Guangdong Province, School of Physics and Optoelectronics, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Huamao Huang, Cheng Huang, Chao Wang, Qingyuan Han, Zijing Xie & Hong Wang

  2. Engineering Laboratory for Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Materials and Device of Guangdong Province, School of Electronics and Information Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Huamao Huang, Haocheng Wu, Zijing Xie & Hong Wang

  3. Zhongshan Institute of Modern Industrial Technology, South China University of Technology, Zhongshan, 528437, China

    Hong Wang

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  1. Huamao Huang
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  2. Cheng Huang
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  7. Hong Wang
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Correspondence to Hong Wang.

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Huang, H., Huang, C., Wu, H. et al. Compromise between illumination performance and modulation bandwidth for micro-size white light-emitting diode by selecting injected current. Appl. Phys. A 125, 522 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-019-2813-4

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