Research Article

Vol. 54, No. 20 / July 10 2015 / Applied Optics

6305

Resonant cavity effect optimization of III-nitride

thin-film flip-chip light-emitting diodes with
microsphere arrays
PEIFEN ZHU1,2,4

AND

NELSON TANSU1,3

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Center for Photonics and Nanoelectronics, Lehigh University,
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, USA
2
Department of Physics and Engineering Physics, The University of Tulsa, 800 South Tucker Drive, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104, USA
3
e-mail: [email protected]
4
e-mail: [email protected]
Received 11 May 2015; accepted 15 June 2015; posted 19 June 2015 (Doc. ID 240584); published 8 July 2015

Comprehensive studies were carried out to investigate the light extraction efficiency of thin-film flip-chip (TFFC)
light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with anatase TiO2 microsphere arrays by employing the finite-difference timedomain method. The quantum well position and the resonant cavity effect were studied to obtain optimum light
extraction for the planar TFFC LED. Further enhancement in light extraction was achieved by depositing
microsphere arrays on the TFFC LED. The calculation results showed that the sphere diameter, packing
density, and packing configuration have significant effects on the light extraction efficiency. A maximum light
extraction efficiency of 75% in TFFC LEDs with microsphere arrays has been achieved. This study demonstrates
the importance of optimizing the quantum well position, cavity thickness, sphere diameter, sphere packing density, and packing configuration for enhancing the light extraction efficiency of TFFC LEDs with microsphere
arrays. 2015 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (230.3670) Light-emitting diodes; (250.0250) Optoelectronics.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/AO.54.006305

1. INTRODUCTION
The development of GaN-based semiconductors can be traced
back to the early work at RCA Laboratories in 1969 [1]. Since
then, tremendous efforts have been devoted to the growth of
wurtzite GaN and InGaN, the control of the p-GaN conductivity, and the development of LED technologies [26].
However, one of the major challenges for GaN-based LEDs
is the poor electrical conductivity of p-GaN [7,8]. This leads
to challenges related to the current spreading underneath p-electrode, which results in nonhomogeneous light emission from the
LED chip. This problem can be solved by the deposition of a
semi-transparent Ni/Au layer on the p-GaN [9,10], which overcomes the current spreading problem. However, the light extraction efficiency of the LED is reduced due to the absorption of the
Ni/Au layer. The LED performance is thus a tradeoff between
optimized current spreading uniformity and light extraction.
Specifically, thicker Ni/Au can improve the current spreading
in p-GaN but reduces the light extraction efficiency significantly
while a thinner Ni/Au layer can improve the light extraction
efficiency but at the cost of efficient current spreading.
In order to eliminate the light absorption of the semitransparent metal while keeping good current spreading,
1559-128X/15/206305-08$15/0$15.00 2015 Optical Society of America

flip-chip technology is implemented in LED devices [11]. In

this approach, the thick Ni/Au metal is deposited on the
p-GaN and the light is extracted from the sapphire substrate.
However, the refractive index of GaN and sapphire are 2.5 and
1.8 respectively, which are much larger than the refractive index
of free space. According to Snells law, strong reflection at both
the n-GaNsapphire boundary and the boundary between the
sapphire and free space will result in light trapping within the
n-GaN layer and sapphire substrate. In order to extract the
guided modes out of the devices, the laser-liftoff method is applied to the LED device to remove the sapphire substrate followed by thinning down the n-GaN, resulting in a thin-film
flip chip (TFFC) structure [12]. In this device configuration,
the interference effect was used to enhance the light extraction,
and maximum light extraction efficiency of 27% has been
achieved by tuning the p-GaN thickness and cavity thickness
[1316]. Further enhancement in light extraction efficiency
was achieved via surface modification of the TFFC LED by
employing nanostructures. The use of surface roughness and
photonic crystals are the two most effective approaches, which
result in light extraction of 65% and 72%, respectively [13,17].
The use of dry-etched GaN nanostructures had also been

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investigated as an approach to achieve improved extraction in

TFFC LEDs [1820]. However, the nonuniformity of surface
roughness and high cost of photonic crystals are hindering the
wide adoption of LED in the illumination market. The use of
cost-effective methods to enhance the light extraction of TFFC
LEDs is instrumental in pushing LED implementation today
in solid-state lighting.
Our recent works demonstrated the implementation of
SiO2 and TiO2 sphere arrays and microlens arrays on the conventional top-emitting GaN-based LED. The microsphere and
microlens arrays were deposited by the cost-effective rapid convective deposition method [2123], and resulted in significant
enhancement in light extraction efficiency [2226]. The importance of sphere refractive index and diameter on the light
extraction efficiency was discussed in our previous work [26].
The microlens arrays were also employed as an imprinting template for a fabricating concave structure on a GaN-based LED
and corrugated structures in an organic LED (OLED), which
resulted in 3 times enhancement in power efficiency [27,28].
Our recent work has also shown the ability to engineer hexagonal or square lattice arrays using this method [21,29], as well as
the importance of having hexagonal close-packed lattice arrays
as the optimum structure for light extraction purposes [29].
In this work, a comprehensive study was carried out to optimize TFFC LEDs with microsphere arrays. The goal of this
study is to investigate how much improvement in term of absolute extraction efficiency can be achieved from the implementation of microsphere array techniques on TFFC LEDs. This
study provides useful guidance for potential implementation in
industry by taking the microsphere array deposition method
and translating that into TFFC LED integration. The optimization of the LED extraction efficiency was performed in TFFC
LED device configuration by taking into account the cavity
effect, microsphere properties, sphere diameters, p-GaN thickness, and periodical arrangement of microsphere arrays.
2. FDTD ANALYSIS OF LIGHT EXTRACTION
EFFICIENCY FOR TFFC LEDS
The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method [26] was
employed to calculate the light extraction efficiency of TFFC
LEDs. The TFFC LED device structure analyzed in this study
is shown in Fig. 1. An InGaN/GaN quantum well is sandwiched by p-GaN and n-GaN, and the refractive index of

Fig. 1. Schematic of TFFC LEDs used in FDTD simulation with

quantum well positioning within the structure.

Research Article
GaN was set to 2.5. The metallic mirror was attached to
the bottom of the LED, which is assumed to be a perfect mirror
with 100% reflectance. Considering the computational efficiency in FDTD simulation, we employed a simulation domain
of 10 m 10 m with perfect matched layer boundary conditions applied to the lateral boundaries and perfect electric
conductor (PEC) boundary conditions applied to the bottom
of the LED. The grid size was set to be 10 nm to ensure
accurate results. The simulation time was set to be large enough
to make sure of the stabilized field output.
One dipole was chosen as the light source within the quantum well region and positioned in the center region of the
quantum well. The emission wavelength used in this calculation was set to
500 nm. The light extraction efficiency was
calculated as the ratio of the optical output power extracted
from the top of the LED to the total output power generated
by the dipole. The details of the FDTD simulation method
were described previously in our recent work [26].
3. LIGHT EXTRACTION OF TFFC PLANAR
LEDS: QUANTUM WELL POSITION AND
RESONANT CAVITY EFFECT
The conventional LED structure can be grown on the sapphire
substrate; then the TFFC LED can be fabricated via the laserliftoff process to remove the sapphire substrate, followed by
chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) to thin down the
n-GaN, which results in a TFFC LED with tunable n-GaN
thickness [30]. Note that the p-GaN thickness can be tuned
in the epitaxy process. Thus, a TFFC LED structure with various p-GaN and n-GaN thicknesses can be achieved by tuning
epitaxy growth and CMP times.
As shown in Fig. 1, the metal contact below the p-GaN in
the TFFC LED reflects the downward-traveling light, which
leads to the interference of light between the upward-traveling
light and the reflected light. In addition, a fraction of the
upward-traveling light will be reflected back to the active region
at the interface of the GaN and free space, which will lead to
interference as well. Therefore, proper design of quantum
well position as well as the cavity thickness of the LED structure will have a significant effect on the light extraction efficiency [15,16,3140].
The cavity thickness and quantum well position, determined by the p-GaN thickness, were tuned to obtain the
maximum light extraction efficiency. The optimized planar
TFFC LED structure will be used as reference for the TFFC
LED with microspheres. In this calculation, the cavity thickness was chosen as 700 nm and the p-GaN thickness was tuned
to investigate the effect of quantum well position on the light
extraction efficiency of TFFC LEDs.
Figure 2 shows the light extraction efficiency of TFFC LEDs
(
500 nm) with a cavity thickness of 700 nm. The extraction efficiency of the LEDs shows a strong dependency on the
p-GaN thickness. The higher efficiencies were achieved at
p-GaN thicknesses of 50, 150, 250, and 350 nm; the lower
efficiencies were observed at p-GaN thickness of 100, 200,
and 300 nm. This finding shown here is consistent with the
interference theory.

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Vol. 54, No. 20 / July 10 2015 / Applied Optics

0.14

=500 nm
n=2.5

Cavity thickness: 700 nm

Extraction Ratio

0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0

100

200
300
400
p-GaN Thickness (nm)

500

Fig. 2. Quantum well position-dependent light extraction efficiency

of TFFC LEDs with cavity thickness of 700 nm.

In order to investigate the resonant cavity effect on the light

extraction efficiency, the light extraction of LEDs with various
cavity thicknesses was also calculated with a constant p-GaN
thickness of 150 nm (Fig. 3). The thickness of p-GaN was

0.3

p-GaN thickness: 150 nm

=500 nm

Extraction Ratio

0.25

nGaN=2.5

0.2

chosen as 150 nm, which is the optimized p-GaN thickness

in typical TFFC LEDs. As shown in Fig. 3, the periodic modulation of the extraction efficiency with varying cavity thicknesses is observed, which is attributed to the interference
effect of multiple light reflections inside the LED. An extraction efficiency of 27% is achieved for cavity thickness of
250 nm, which is a 6 7 times improvement over the conventional top-emitting LED devices. The modulation depth
decreases as the cavity thickness increases. For small cavity
thickness, only a small number of the FabryPerot modes exist,
resulting in higher extraction efficiency. The FabryPerot
modes increase with cavity thickness, which leads to the averaging of the many modes and a weaker interference effect.
From our previous calculation, the light extraction efficiency
reaches a maximum at cavity thicknesses of 250, 350, 450, 550,
650, and 750 nm. However, the maximum extraction efficiency decreases with the increase in the cavity thickness. Our
analysis focuses on the cavity thicknesses of 650 and 750 nm, as
these structures are experimentally implementable and have
reasonable light extraction efficiency. Thus, we further optimized quantum well position for the LED with cavity thickness
of 650 and 750 nm for optimizing the light extraction efficiency. Figure 4 shows the light extraction efficiency as a function of quantum well position for TFFC LEDs with cavity
thicknesses of 650 and 750 nm. Maximum light extraction
efficiencies of 20% and 19% were achieved at p-GaN thickness
of 150 nm for LEDs with cavity thicknesses of 650 nm and
750 nm, respectively.
4. EXTRACTION EFFICIENCY OF TFFC LEDS
WITH MICROSPHERE ARRAYS

0.15
0.1
0.05
0
100

300

500
700
900
1100
Cavity Thickness (nm)

1300

Fig. 3. Light extraction efficiency of TFFC LEDs with various

cavity thicknesses for the p-GaN thickness of 150 nm.

The light extraction efficiency of the TFFC LEDs measured is

much higher than that of conventional top-emitting LEDs, but
further low-cost improvement approaches to external quantum
efficiency are necessary to increase the market penetration of
this technology. Further optimization could be achieved by depositing TiO2 sphere arrays onto the TFFC LED, which is similar to the reported approach on the conventional LED [26].
As reported in a previous work [41], the fabrication of
TiO2 microsphere arrays on top of the LED can be performed
via the rapid convective deposition (RCD) method. RCD is a
0.25

0.25
Cavity thickness: 650 nm
=500 nm
n=2.5

Cavity thickness: 750 nm

=500 nm
n=2.5

0.2
Extraction Ratio

Extraction Ratio

0.2
0.15
0.1

0.15
0.1
0.05

0.05

0
0

100

200

300

Thickness of p-GaN (nm)

Fig. 4.

6307

400

100

200

300

400

Thickness of p-GaN (nm)

Quantum well position-dependent light extraction efficiency of TFFC LEDs with cavity thickness of 600 nm (left) and 750 nm (right).

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self-assembly process which deposits negative-charged particles

under the capillary force. By modifying the deposition speed
(vd ), different packing densities (i.e., submonolayer, monolayer,
and multilayer) can be obtained. The critical speed for achieving monolayer is determined by evaporation rate, volume fraction of microsphere suspension, porosity of the colloidal crystal,
and the height of thin film. Note that by tuning the porosity of
the colloidal crystal, different packing geometries (i.e., hexagonal close-packed array and square close-packed array) can be
obtained. The microsphere arrays with different packing
densities and packing geometries are illustrated in Fig. 5.
Note that monodisperse TiO2 spheres can be synthesized by
the mixed-solvent method [42], and the diameter of the spheres
can also be engineered by tuning the concentrations of ethanol
and acetonitrile.
Detailed analysis on the effect of the microsphere arrays on
TFFC LEDs has been performed focusing on sphere packing
geometry, sphere packing density, and sphere diameter. Due to
the matched refractive index between the TiO2 microsphere
arrays and the GaN layer, TiO2 microsphere arrays show enhanced performance over the SiO2 microsphere arrays [22].
Therefore, the study of microsphere arrays and their effects
on the performance of TFFC LEDs will focus on the TiO2
sphere arrays.
First, the effects of the microsphere array packing geometries
on the light extraction of TFFC LEDs are compared. Figure 6
shows a comparison of the far-field radiation patterns for the
planar LED (as reference), and LEDs with hexagonal closepacked geometry and square close-packed geometry. The farfield radiation patterns show that significantly enhanced light
extraction in larger angular direction was observed for the LED
with hexagonal close-packed monolayer sphere arrays. The enhanced light extraction of the LED with square close-packed
sphere arrays is also observed both in the large angular and
normal directions. However, the far-field intensities exhibit
different symmetries: a hexagonal pattern for the microsphere
LED with a hexagonal close-packed structure, and a square
(a) Hexagonal closepacked

(b) Square close-packed

monolayer sphere arrays

monolayer arrays

(c) LED with submonolayer

(d) LED with multilayer

microsphere arrays

microsphere Arrays

Fig. 5. Schematic of microsphere LEDs with (a) hexagonal closepacked sphere arrays, (b) square close-packed sphere arrays, (c) submonolayer sphere arrays, and (d) multilayer microsphere arrays.

Research Article

Fig. 6. Far-field radiation pattern of microsphere TFFC LEDs with

different packing geometry: (a) with hexagonal close-packed geometry
shown as (c); (b) with square close-packed geometry shown as (d); and
(e) planar LED.

radiation pattern for the microsphere array LED with a square

close-packed symmetry. This indicates that the sphere array arrangement has a significant effect on light scattering, resulting
in notable change in the far-field radiation pattern. Comparison
of the radiation patterns shows that the LED with a hexagonal
close-packed monolayer sphere array exhibits higher output
power intensity than the LED with a square close-packed
sphere array. Therefore, our following analysis will mainly focus
on the TFFC LED with hexagonal close-packed microsphere
arrays.
In addition to the microsphere array packing geometry, the
packing density of the microsphere array could also have a
notable effect on the light extraction of LEDs. Figure 7 shows
the comparison of the far-field radiation patterns between the
planar LED, LEDs with submonolayer sphere arrays, LEDs
with monolayer sphere arrays, and LEDs with multilayer sphere
arrays. The far-field radiation pattern for the planar LEDs [as
shown in Fig. 6(e)] exhibits a Lambertian radiation pattern
with only angular dependency and symmetrically azimuthal
distribution. The far-field intensity is much weaker in all angular directions compared to the microsphere LEDs due to the
narrower light escape, and only a small fraction of light is
extracted out from the LED device. The inner and outer radiation rings are attributed to the direct emission from the
InGaN quantum wells (QWs) and reflected emission by
PEC reflectors, respectively. The LEDs with microsphere arrays
exhibit both angular and azimuthal dependency as shown in
Figs. 7(a)7(f ). Significantly higher intensity is observed for
the far-field radiation patterns of microsphere array LEDs in
the normal and large angular distributions, which in turn results in improved light extraction efficiency for these LEDs.
The far-field intensity of LEDs with microsphere arrays exhibits hexagonal symmetry due to the hexagonal packed nature of
sphere arrays. However, the light distribution along the angular
and azimuthal directions differs for the LEDs with submonolayer sphere arrays, monolayer arrays, and multilayer arrays. For
the LED with monolayer microsphere arrays, most of the light
was extracted out in the larger angular direction, which resulted
in enhanced light extraction efficiency, while only a small
amount of light was extracted out in the smaller angular

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Vol. 54, No. 20 / July 10 2015 / Applied Optics

6309

Fig. 7. Far-field radiation pattern of microsphere TFFC LEDs with submonolayer, monolayer, and multilayer sphere arrays with packing densities
of (a) 0.67, (b) 0.8, (c) 1, (d) 2, (e) 3, and (f ) 4.

direction. For the case of LEDs with submonolayer sphere

arrays, the light is spread over a larger surface and it can be
extracted out in a relatively larger angular range; however,
the overall intensity is lower than that of LEDs with monolayer
sphere arrays. The same phenomenon is observed for LEDs
with multilayer sphere arrays, but the light intensity is much
lower than that of LEDs with monolayer sphere arrays.
Next, the effect of the microsphere diameter on the light
extraction efficiency of TFFC LEDs is examined. Figure 8
shows the light extraction efficiencies of microsphere array
TFFC LEDs with diameters of 250, 400, 500, 600, 750,
850, and 1. The light extraction efficiency changes with the
diameter of the microspheres. Extraction efficiencies of
39%, 63%, 38%, 28%, 53%, 46%, and 27% were achieved

Fig. 8. Light extraction efficiency of microsphere LED with microsphere arrays.

for TFFC LEDs with sphere diameters of 250 nm, 400 nm,
500 nm, 600 nm, 750 nm, 850 nm, and 1 m, respectively.
Note that only 20% of light can be extracted out for the planar
TFFC LED with the same cavity thickness and quantum well
position. The light extraction efficiency is significantly enhanced by the use of TiO2 microsphere arrays on the LED surface, leading to a wider light escape cone due to the curved
boundary between the spheres and free space. Note that the
diameter of the sphere has a significant effect on the light
extraction efficiency of the LEDs. The LED with the 400 nm
sphere shows an extraction efficiency of 63%. When the light
collides with the TiO2 sphere with size comparable to its wavelength, the light scatters strongly along the forward direction.
This effect enhances the light extraction. Note that the comparison of light extraction efficiency between microsphere array
LEDs and planar LEDs was carried out by taking the total
output power integrated over the whole solid angle.
The light extraction efficiency of TFFC LEDs with microspheres was further optimized by engineering the cavity thickness. The p-GaN thickness was chosen as 170 nm, which is
within a typical range for the p-type layer thickness in LED
epitaxy. The cavity thickness was tuned from 640 to
700 nm. Figure 9 shows the light extraction efficiency of
TFFC LEDs with various cavity thicknesses. Extraction efficiencies of 46%, 59%, 74%, 62.7%, 59%, and 50% were
achieved for cavity thicknesses of 643 nm, 653 nm,
663 nm, 673 nm, 678 nm, and 683 nm, respectively. The efficiency varies from 42% to 62.7%. The modulation of extraction efficiency with various cavity thicknesses is attributed to
the interference of multiple reflections in the FabryPerot
cavity structure. An extraction efficiency of 63% is achieved
for a cavity thickness of 673 nm, which is a 16 times improvement over that of a conventional top-emitting LED.

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Extraction Efficiency

Monolayer: mon=75%

0.8

Multilayers

0.6

3 layer

0.4

4 layer

2 layer

0.2

Tn-GaN = 500 nm

dsphere = 400 nm

Tp-GaN = 160 nm

Anatase TiO2 sphere

0
0

Packing Density

Fig. 9. Cavity-dependent light extraction efficiency of TFFC LEDs

with microsphere arrays.

Fig. 11. Extraction efficiency of microsphere TFFC LEDs with

various packing densities.

The TFFC LED structure was further optimized by tuning

the quantum well position. The p-GaN thickness was varied
from 140 to 190 nm. As shown in Fig. 10, the extraction efficiency increases first and then decreases. A maximum extraction
efficiency of 75% is achieved at a p-GaN thickness of 160 nm.
The light extraction efficiencies of planar TFFC LEDs with the
same p-GaN thickness and cavity thickness are also plotted in
Fig. 10 for comparison purposes. While the planar TFFC LEDs
display a similar efficiency trend with respect to the p-GaN
thickness, the overall efficiency is much lower than that of the
TFFC LEDs with microsphere arrays. The notable improvement in light extraction for TFFC LEDs with microsphere
arrays is attributed to the cavity effect and lightsphere
interaction.
The light emitted from the quantum well is isotropic, and
the forward-traveling light interferes with the totally reflected
light from the metallic mirror attached to the bottom of the
p-GaN layer. Constructive interference occurs when optical
length difference between the forward-traveling light and reflected light equals an integer of the wavelength. The optical
length difference depends on the cavity thickness and light

emission direction. Thus, the quantum well position and cavity

thickness have a significant effect on light emission from the
LED. The optimum light extraction efficiency is achieved
by tuning the p-GaN and cavity thicknesses.
Further study was performed to confirm the optimization of
light extraction efficiency of microsphere array TFFC LEDs by
considering all the effects of microsphere packing geometry,
microsphere packing density, sphere diameter, and cavity
thickness. Figure 11 shows the light extraction efficiency of
microsphere array TFFC LEDs with various packing densities
and with optimized sphere diameter, microsphere packing
geometry, and cavity thickness. Note that the packing density
is presented by the ratio of the sphere diameter to the lattice
period (denoted as R d p). For example, the hexagonal closepacked monolayer sphere array has an R d p of 1. The submonolayer has R d p smaller than 1, while the multilayer has R d p
larger than 1. Light extraction efficiency increased with the increase in R d p and a maximum light extraction efficiency of
75% is achieved when a monolayer of microsphere is used
on the LED. This ensures that the optimization of the light
extraction efficiency of microsphere array TFFC LEDs is
achieved.

max = 75%
~ 500 nm

Extraction Efficiency

0.8

0.6

Anatase TiO2 sphere

dsphere = 400 nm
Tn-GaN = 500 nm

TFFC_Microsphere

0.4
Planar TFFC

0.2

Without cavity effect

Conventional LED

0
100

120

140
160
180
p-GaN Thickness (nm)

200

Fig. 10. p-GaN thickness-dependent light extraction efficiency of

TFFC with microsphere arrays.

5. CONCLUSION
The FDTD method was employed to calculate the light extraction efficiency of thin-film flip-chip LEDs with TiO2 -based
microsphere arrays. The cavity thickness and quantum well
position were tuned to achieve optimum light extraction. In
addition, the effect of periodical arrangement of sphere on light
extraction was also investigated. Specifically, the light extraction
efficiency of TiO2 microsphere array LEDs with different packing densities and different packing geometries are compared.
The optimized light extraction efficiency can be achieved with
a hexagonal close-packed monolayer of TiO2 sphere arrays.
The use of a hexagonal close-packed monolayer of TiO2 microsphere arrays in TFFC LEDs is expected to result in 75% light
extraction efficiency, which corresponds to 3.6 times enhancement over that for optimized planar TFFC LEDs.

Research Article
Funding. Daniel E. '39 and Patricia M. Smith Endowed
Chair Professorship; National Science Foundation (NSF)
(ECCS-1408051, CBET-1120399); U.S. Department of
Energy (NETL, DE-PS26-08NT00290).
Acknowledgment. The authors also would like to
acknowledge useful discussions with Wei Sun and CheeKeong Tan, both from Lehigh University.
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