Single-step-fabricated disordered metasurfaces for enhanced light extraction from LEDs.
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
While total internal reflection (TIR) lays the foundation for many important applications, foremost fibre optics that revolutionised information technologies, it is undesirable in some other applications such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which are a backbone for energy-efficient light sources. In the case of LEDs, TIR prevents photons from escaping the constituent high-index materials. Advances in material science have led to good efficiencies in generating photons from electron-hole pairs, making light extraction the bottleneck of the overall efficiency of LEDs. In recent years, the extraction efficiency has been improved, using nanostructures at the semiconductor/air interface that outcouple trapped photons to the outside continuum. However, the design of geometrical features for light extraction with sizes comparable to or smaller than the optical wavelength always requires sophisticated and time-consuming fabrication, which causes a gap between lab demonstration and industrial-level applications. Inspired by lightning bugs, we propose and realise a disordered metasurface for light extraction throughout the visible spectrum, achieved with single-step fabrication. By applying such a cost-effective light extraction layer, we improve the external quantum efficiency by a factor of 1.65 for commercialised GaN LEDs, demonstrating a substantial potential for global energy-saving and sustainability.
Date Issued
2021-09-06
Date Acceptance
2021-08-19
Citation
Light: Science and Applications, 2021, 10 (1)
ISSN
2047-7538
Publisher
Springer Nature [academic journals on nature.com]
Journal / Book Title
Light: Science and Applications
Volume
10
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (E
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34489399
PII: 10.1038/s41377-021-00621-7
Grant Number
EP/M013812/1
Subjects
0205 Optical Physics
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
ARTN 180