Metal mirror assisting light extraction from patterned AlGaInP light-emitting diodes

Abstract

We demonstrate light extraction from metal reflector-based AlGaInP photonic crystal (PhC) light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The photons reflected by a high-reflectivity, small-absorption, bottom Ag mirror steadily interact with the PhC, and thus enhanced light extraction is achieved. The square lattice PhC patterns are fabricated on an upper n-doped AlGaInP surface with a depth of 500 nm. An optical power measurement using an integration sphere shows that the extraction efficiency of the PhC LED is similar to 1.8 times larger than that of the nonpatterned LED. A three-dimensional finite difference time domain simulation is performed to understand the output enhancement extracted by the PhC and the effect of internal absorption.