The present disclosure relates to the technical field of LEDs, in particular, to an RGB full-color InGaN-based LED prepared by introducing an ultra-thin intermediate layer of 2D materials, and a method for preparing the same.
In the manufacturing process of Micro-LED displays (Displays), red, green and blue (RGB) three primary color light-emitting diodes are used to form the pixels of the unit. At present, the main manufacturing technology needs to mix nitrides and phosphides series of light-emitting diodes, such that it can meet the needs of the three primary colors. When light-emitting diodes of different material systems are mixed, different heating and attenuation characteristics directly affect the quality of the image presentation; different electrical driving characteristics directly lead to the complexity of the display module drive design. Therefore, if the direct light-emitting RGB (red, green, and blue) three primary color light-emitting diodes are realized on the same material system, it will not only help solve the above problems, but also reduce the complexity of the process and the energy efficiency loss caused by the conversion due to the omission of the color-to-light conversion mechanism such as phosphors, such that it will be beneficial to the development of Micro LED technology.
Indium gallium nitride InxGa1-xN epitaxy material is currently one of the material systems for making mainstream blue light emitting diodes. Theoretically, the entire visible light emission range can be covered by the indium gallium solid solution ratio control. Indium gallium nitride benefits from direct energy gap characteristic, and is also expected to have better luminous efficiency, especially the blue mass production technology is proficient, so it has received more attention than other material systems, in the production of direct red, green and blue light-emitting diodes (RGB direct LED) with similar control conditions and good performance has great potential. However, at present, the green and red light-emitting diodes of InxGa1-xN epitaxial materials are facing technical bottlenecks. To achieve the appropriate light-emitting bands of green and red light, the In content ratio of InxGa1-xN series epitaxy needs to be increased. However, it faces obstacles such as poor epitaxial quality. The main reason is that although InxGa1-xN has solid solubility in the entire composition (x) range, the gap between In and Ga ion radii is large, making the solid solubility more sensitive to stress conditions and the probability of phase separation is higher. When the In content increases, the lattice constant of the epitaxial layer increases, and the strain caused by the mismatch with the substrate material also increases, resulting in InxGa1-xN solid solubility is impacted and the phase separation of InN occurs due to the impact, and the originally expected light-emitting characteristics are severely impacted. Therefore, one of the main methods to solve the development of green and red direct LED technology is to find an epitaxial substrate material with a suitable lattice constant. Referring to
Zinc oxide (ZnO) single crystal material is a more suitable substrate material candidate in the previous item in terms of crystal structure, thermal properties, and lattice constant, which attracts researchers' interest. However, zinc oxide is not widely used in the technical field today. The main reason is that zinc oxide has high chemical activity and is easily corroded by hydrogen-containing substances in the subsequent epitaxy process, resulting in poor epitaxial layer quality, as shown in
As shown in Table 1, according to the current technology, whether the substrate materials adopted are single-crystal sapphire (Sapphire), single-crystal zinc oxide (ZnO), or even single-crystal gallium nitride (GaN) substrates and the like, they cannot be successfully to produce direct green and red light-emitting diodes made of InxGa1-xN epitaxial materials with practical applications. It is very difficult to realize the three-primary color RGB LED chip with the same material system, direct light emission, and high performance on the micro LED technology.
In view of this, the French company Soitec announced in 2017 that it has developed a substrate material suitable for the above-mentioned purposes. In the same year, it released the direct green LED successfully produced using the substrate. The company released that the developed substrate crystal has the lattice constant reaching as high as 0.3205 nanometers (nm). In 2018, the company released a direct red LED successfully produced using the substrate. The highest substrate lattice constant released by the company remains unchanged at 0.3205 nanometers (nm). The company's substrate development has not only achieved specific results, but also proved that the substrate lattice constant is the key to the successful realization of InxGa1-xN direct green/red LEDs. However, as shown in
Two-dimensional (2D) materials are a rapidly developing emerging field. The first and most well-known material in the 2D material family that attracted a large amount of R&D investment is graphene, its two-dimensional layered structure has a special or excellent physical/chemical/mechanical/optical properties. There is no strong bond between the layers. Only van der Waals forces are present for combination. This also means that there are no dangling bonds on the surface of the layered structure. At present, graphene has been confirmed that it has a wide and excellent application potential, graphene research and development work is generally carried out around the world, and it also drives the research and development of more 2D materials, including hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN), transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and black phosphorus and the like, they are also the 2D material family that have accumulated more research and development results. As shown in
Due to the nature of the above-mentioned layered structure and the combination of van der Waals forces between layers, the technical feasibility of making two or more materials in the 2D material family into layered stacked hetero-structures is greatly improved. In addition to the combination of different characteristics, the hetero-structures make it possible to create new application characteristics or make new components. Currently, research and development in the field of optoelectronics and semiconductors is quite active.
The van der Waals force bonding characteristics of 2D materials have also attracted attention for the use of epitaxial substrates applied to traditional 3D materials. The focus is on the crystal structure, lattice constant, and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of epitaxial materials in epitaxial technology must match the substrate material very well, but in reality, it often encounters the lack of suitable substrate materials as mentioned by the subject of the present disclosure, or the ideal substrate material is expensive or difficult to obtain. At this time, 2D materials are provided as another solution for hetero-epitaxial substrates, that is the so-called van der Waals Epitaxy. The mechanism that van der Waals epitaxy may be beneficial to heterogeneous epitaxy comes from that the direct chemical bond of the traditional epitaxial interface is replaced by van der Waals force bonding, which will relieve the stress or strain energy from the lattice and thermal expansion mismatch in the epitaxial process to a certain extent, so as to improve the quality of the epitaxial layer, in other words, through the introduction of 2D materials and van der Waals epitaxy, certain hetero-epitaxial techniques that were not in practice can be made possible. Related research also pointed out that when the above-mentioned 2D materials are stacked on each other with heterogeneous structures, the mutual force is dominated by Van der Waals forces; while the epitaxy of 3D materials is carried out on 2D materials, due to the dangling bonds of 3D materials on the interface exists and the dangling bond also contributes to the bonding force of the interface, this epitaxy is not pure van der Waals Epitaxy or can be more accurately regarded as Quasi van der Waals Epitaxy. No matter what the situation is, the matching degree of the lattice and thermal expansion undoubtedly still plays a certain role in the final epitaxial quality. Both the 2D material intermediate layer and the substrate material contribute to the overall matching degree. The above-mentioned 2D layered material has a hexagon or honeycomb structure, and is considered structurally compatible with Wurtzite and Zinc-Blende structural materials during the epitaxy. The main epitaxial materials in the related fields of the present disclosure belong to this type of structure. As the InxGa1-xN epitaxial layer of direct green, red LED, it belongs to the Wurtzite structure. In fact, as shown in
At present, the MOCVD epitaxial temperature of the blue light-emitting diode quantum well light-emitting layer in commercial mass production is generally close to or lower than 800° C., which is a compromise between reaching the In content that can emit blue light and trying to raise the epitaxial temperature to obtain better epitaxial quality when GaN/sapphire is adopted as the epitaxial substrate of InGaN for commercial mass production. MOCVD epitaxial temperature is the key parameter for regulating In content of the InGaN quantum well light-emitting layer. With respect to the same substrate, InGaN quantum well light-emitting layers of green and red emissions require higher In content with lower epitaxial temperature, resulting in inferior epitaxial quality than the blue light-emitting layer. This is the one of the fundamental difficulties that commercial mass production of green light-emitting diode production maturity is lagging behind the blue light-emitting diode, while commercial mass production of red InGaN light-emitting diode is difficult to realize. To this end, the InGaN surface layer of the aforementioned French company Soitec proposed InGaNOS substrate can be realized with up to 7% In content, and it publicly announced that MOCVD epitaxial temperature of the red InGaN quantum well light-emitting layer can be up to 700° C. There is the use of a single-crystal ScMgAlO4 (0001) substrate for the study of the red InGaN light-emitting diode, the lattice constant can be reached up to an InGaN lattice constant level with 17% In content. According to the study published, MOCVD epitaxial temperature of red InGaN quantum well light-emitting layer is up to about 750° C.; the above epitaxial temperature is still lower than the epitaxial temperature of the light-emitting layer of commercialized blue InGaN light-emitting diode.
The present disclosure is intended to provide an RGB full-color InGaN-based LED, and a method for preparing the same, by using an introduction of 2D material ultra-thin layer, directly emitting RGB (red, green, and blue) three primary color light-emitting diodes on the same material system.
In order to achieve the above objective, the solution of the present disclosure is:
A red, green and blue (RGB) full-color InGaN-based light-emitting diode (LED),
The 2D material is hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN), graphene, hBNC, WS2, WSe2, MoS2 or MoSe2. The 2D material ultra-thin layer has a thickness that ranges from 0.5 nm to 1000 nm.
The 2D material ultra-thin layer is a single layer, such as WSe2, or MoSe2.
The 2D material ultra-thin layer is a composite layer structure; a top layer is made of a 2D material that matches the InGaN lattice, such as WSe2, or MoSe2; and a bottom layer is made of a 2D material with good barrier effect, such as hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN), graphene.
The substrate is single-crystal substrate, such as sapphire, zinc oxide (ZnO), monocrystalline silicon (Si), SiC, GaN; the substrate is material, such as ceramic or glass, etc.
A metal catalytic layer is added between the substrate and the intermediate layer, the metal catalytic layer has a total thickness that ranges from 0.5 nm to 3000 nm, and the metal catalytic layer comprises Fe, Co, Ni, Au, Ag, Cu, W, Mo, Ru, or Pt.
A method for preparing an RGB full-color InGaN-based LED, wherein epitaxial steps for the InGaN-based material and the substrate are as follows:
In Step 2, a single layer or a composite layer 2D material is covered on the surface of the substrate material.
In Step 2, 2D material covering the surface of the substrate material adopts the process, such as growth, deposition, transfer, and coating etc. A total thickness of the single layer or the composite layers ranges from 0.5 nm to 1000 nm.
Between Step 1 and Step 2, according to growth requirements of 2D materials, in a manufacturing process such as a metal catalyst layer is added at a proper time, a total thickness of the metal catalytic layer ranges from 0.5 nm to 3000 nm. The growth or deposition process of the 2D material covering the surface of the substrate material may require a metal catalyst layer including Fe, Co, Ni, Au, Ag, Cu, W, Mo, Ru, or Pt to be grown or deposited on the surface of the substrate first, and may require heat treatment process.
Between Step 2 and Step 3, according to epitaxial quality requirements in Step 3, the 2D material intermediate layer in Step 2 is lithographically divided into domains at a proper time, each of the domains has a size is from 1*1 mm2 to 1000*1000 mm2.
After adopting the above solution, the present disclosure uses 2D material to cover the surface of the substrate material as the intermediate layer for InxGa1-xN epitaxy, and performs van der Waals epitaxy or quasi-van der Waals epitaxy, making the stress or strain energy from the lattice and thermal expansion mismatch in the epitaxy process to be relieved for a certain degree, and high quality and high In content InxGa1-xN epitaxy can be achieved on the currently available substrate surface, and direct green/red LED with high efficiency can be obtained.
The present disclosure can replace the InGaN template substrate developed by Soitec, it can realize direct light-emitting RGB (red, green, and blue) three primary color light-emitting diodes on the same material system, simplify the epitaxial and component processes, making the selection of substrate materials more widely possible. The manufacturing cost is low, and it is conducive to market promotion and application.
In the present disclosure, when 2D WSe2 or MoSe2 is adopted as the InGaN van der Waals epitaxial substrate, both the lattice constants reach the level of InGaN lattice constants of 27-30% In content, which has the feasibility of realizing the MOCVD epitaxial temperature of red InGaN quantum well light-emitting layer of 800° C. or more. Because the characteristics of van der Waals epitaxy can allow a slight difference in the lattice constant without necessarily directly increasing the stress of the epitaxial layer, for example, it may be possible to introduce an epitaxial auxiliary layer with slightly modified lattice constants but still maintaining stress relaxation before MOCVD epitaxy, higher MOCVD epitaxial temperature of red InGaN light-emitting layer can be achieved. The quality of epitaxial red InGaN quantum-well light-emitting layer is a major problem reflected in the commercial application of the red light-emitting wavelength characteristics that the full width at half maximum (FWHM) is too wide to meet the needs of commercial applications. FWHM of red InGaN light-emitting diode must be down to 50 nm or less in order to meet the basic needs of commercial applications. The aforementioned Soitec, its InGaN as well as a single-crystal ScMgAlO4 (0001) substrate published results cannot be achieved in red FWHM of 50 nm or less. The MOCVD epitaxial temperature of red InGaN quantum well light-emitting layer reaches more than 800° C., and the effective improvement of epitaxial quality will be one of the important bases for realizing red FWHM within 50 nm. According to the aforementioned points, the epitaxial temperature and FWHM requirements that can be realized for red InGaN light-emitting diodes imply that they can be realized for both blue and green InGaN light-emitting diodes.
In the drawings:
The present disclosure will be further described in detail below with reference to the drawings and specific embodiments.
As shown in
Among them, the substrate 1 of the present disclosure may be a single crystal substrate, including but not limited to single crystal materials such as sapphire, zinc oxide ZnO, single crystal silicon Si, SiC, GaN, etc. Alternatively, the substrate 1 may be a material such as ceramics or glass. The 2D material of the present disclosure can use hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN), graphene, hBNC, WS2, WSe2, MoS2, or MoSe2. The thickness of the 2D material ultra-thin layer 3 may range from 0.5 nm to 1000 nm.
The 2D material ultra-thin layer 3 shown in
The 2D material ultra-thin layer 3 shown in
The 2D material ultra-thin layer of the bottom layer 32 acts as a barrier to prevent defects in the substrate material from causing damage to the quality of the epitaxial layer and component performance. The defects in the substrate may include point defects (such as oxygen ions or other impurities) and line defects (such as dislocations).
In order to obtain a better structure, the present disclosure can add a metal catalytic layer 4 on the surface of the 2D material covering the substrate 1. The metal catalytic layer 4 can include Fe, Co, Ni, Au, Ag, Cu, W, Mo, Ru, or Pt, etc. The metal catalytic layer 4 may be grown or deposited on the surface of the substrate 1 first, and a heat treatment process may also be required. The total thickness of the metal catalytic layer 4 may range from 0.5 nm to 3000 nm.
The present disclosure also provides a method for preparing an RGB full-color InGaN-based LED, the epitaxy steps for InGaN-based materials and substrate may be as follows:
In Step 1, performing epitaxial-ready growth grade polishing on the substrate 1 (wafer) material, and preparing for subsequent manufacturing procedures through appropriate pre-treatment (including wafer cleaning).
After step 1 and before step 2, manufacturing processes such as the metal catalytic layer 4 can be added in due course according to the growth requirements of the 2D material. The growth or deposition process of the 2D material covering the surface of the substrate 1 may require a metal catalytic layer 4 including Fe, Co, Ni, Au, Ag, Cu, W, Mo, Ru, or Pt to be grown or deposited on the surface of the substrate 1 in advance, heat treatment process may also be needed. The total thickness of the metal catalytic layer 4 ranges from 0.5 nm to 3000 nm.
Step 2, covering a lattice-matched 2D material on the surface of the substrate material as an intermediate layer for the epitaxial InGaN material by using van der Waals Epitaxy or quasi-van der Waals Epitaxy technology. It can be covered by a single layer or a composite layer 2D material ultra-thin layer 3. The 2D material covering the surface of the substrate 1 can adopt existing processes, including growth, deposition, transfer, coating, etc., as well as related necessary pre-treatment and post-treatment processes. The total thickness of a single layer or multiple layers ranges from 0.5 nm to 1000 nm.
After step 2 and before step 3, according to the epitaxial quality requirements of step 3, the 2D material intermediate layer in step 2 can be divided into domains by photolithography and other processes to relieve the stress. The domain size can be 1*1 mm2 to 1000*1000 mm2.
Step 3, growing an epitaxial layer 2 of InGaN-based material on the intermediate layer using van der Waals Epitaxy or quasi-van der Waals Epitaxy technology. In the InGaN-based material epitaxial layer, each light-emitting layer of RGB LED quantum wells is formed epitaxial grown at MOCVD temperature above 800° C.; to achieve each full width at half maximum (FWHM) of light-emitting wavelength characteristics of RGB LED components less than 50 nm.
When MoSe2 or WSe2 is adopted as the outermost layer of the 2D material of the present disclosure, the lattice constant can be as high as 0.3283 nm or 0.3297 nm, and is highly matched to the InGaN epitaxial layer in the red light emission range. In addition to ensuring the quality of the epitaxial layer, it has the opportunity to simplify the epitaxial and assembly processes, and will also make the selection of substrate materials more widely available.
In the present disclosure, when the substrate material has any chemical composition or micro-defects that may affect the quality of the epitaxy, the 2D material can adopt hetero-structures, and choose a material with strong chemical stability or diffusion barrier performance as the bottom layer, for example hBN, to be bonded to the substrate, and the surface layer is made of a material that matches well with the epitaxial layer.
The InGaN template epitaxial growth at the beginning of the InGaN template substrate manufacturing process of French Soitec company already includes the basic material and epitaxial process cost. This part of the cost evaluation is not less than the process cost of the method of the present disclosure; and its follow-up must go through two InGaN layer peeling-bonding processes, and includes stress relaxation lithography as a necessary process. Regardless of the impact of multiple processes on the yield rate, the related processes can significantly increase the manufacturing cost of the finished InGaN template substrate. However, according to the company's announcement, the current upper limit of the lattice constant of its InGaN temple substrate is only 0.3205 nanometers (nm). This lattice constant value is actually only slightly higher than that of GaN, but still significantly lower than the green and red InGaN light emitting range. Judging from the fact that it is still unable to successfully produce robust green light products using GaN directly as the substrate, the company's technical achievements show that increasing the substrate lattice constant has a clear help, but it is obvious that more complicated and longer epitaxial processes are still needed in the production of components to gradually transfer to the appropriate epitaxial active layer, such that the cost of the component manufacturing will be higher. The present disclosure adopts van der Waals Epitaxy or quasi van der Waals Epitaxy technology, and the mismatched stress or strain energy can be relieved to a certain extent. The lattice constant value of the top layer of the substrate can also reach about 0.329 nanometers (nm), which ideally matches the green and red InGaN range of
In the experiment using 2D MoSe2/sapphire as van der Waals epitaxial substrate, about 3 nm of 2D MoSe2 layer is deposited on c-plane sapphire wafer by CVD method, and 100 nm sputtering In0.34Al0.66N is adopted as the nucleation layer for the MOCVD InGaN, and then MOCVD InGaN regrowth is directly carried out above 800° C. The nucleation layer lattice constant of In0.34Al0.66N used in this experiment is matched with that of In0.2Ga0.8N, that is, under InGaN lattice constant with about 20% In content, MOCVD InGaN regrowth temperature is 865° C. (MOCVD epitaxial parameters are as follows: carrier gas, N2; Set temp, 865° C.; pressure, 400 mbar; NH3 flow, 9800 sccm; TEGa flow, 33 sccm; TMIn flow, 162 sccm). The specimen surfaces before and after MOCVD InGaN regrowth are maintained smooth mirror surfaces; the specimen before and after regrowth are subjected to X-ray diffraction analysis. The specimen X-ray diffraction analysis before regrowth shows the nucleation layer In0.34Al0.66N (002) peaks. The original In0.34Al0.66N (002) peak of the specimen after the Regrowth X-ray diffraction analysis shows a double diffraction peak, the newly added MOCVD InGaN regrowth peaks is about 16% In content of InGaN by lattice constant back calculation, that is In0.16Ga0.84N, as shown in
The foregoing descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present disclosure, and are not intended to limit the present disclosure. It should be pointed out that the equivalent changes made by those skilled in the art in accordance with the design ideas of the present disclosure after reading the present specification shall fall within the scope of protection of the present disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201910240892.5 | Mar 2019 | CN | national |
The instant application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/439,095, filed Sep. 14, 2021, which is a national stage entry of International Patent Application PCT/CN2020/080291, filed Mar. 20, 2020, which claims priority to China Patent Application 201910240892.5, filed Mar. 28, 2019. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/439,095, International Patent Application PCT/CN2020/080291, and China Patent Application 201910240892.5 are incorporated herein by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 17439095 | Sep 2021 | US |
Child | 18829722 | US |