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LED technology
Physical function
Like a normal diode, an LED consists of a chip of semiconducting material impregnated, or doped, with impurities to create a p-n junction. As in
other diodes, current flows easily from the p-side, or cathode, to the n-side, or anode, but not in the reverse direction. Charge-carriers ��
electrons and electron holes �� flow into the junction from electrodes with different voltages. When an electron meets a hole, it falls into a lower
energy level, and releases energy in the form of a photon.

The wavelength of the light emitted, and therefore its colour, depends on the band gap energy of the materials forming the p-n junction. In silicon
or germanium diodes, the electrons and holes recombine by a non-radiative transition which produces no optical emission, because these are
indirect band gap materials. The materials used for an LED have a direct band gap with energies corresponding to near-infrared, visible or
near-ultraviolet light.

LED development began with infrared and red devices made with gallium arsenide. Advances in materials science have made possible the
production of devices with ever-shorter wavelengths, producing light in a variety of colors.

LEDs are usually built on an n-type substrate, with electrode attached to the p-type layer deposited on its surface. P-type substrates, while less
common, occur as well. Many commercial LEDs, especially GaN/InGaN, also use sapphire substrate. Substrates that are transparent to the emitted
wavelength, and backed by a reflective layer, increase the LED efficiency. The refractive index of the package material should match the index of
the semiconductor, otherwise the produced light gets partially reflected back into the semiconductor, where it gets absorbed and turns into
additional heat lowering the efficiency. In 2007 experiments tried to avoid multiple internal reflection by roughening the chip. Again at the surface
from the package to a low refractive index medium like a glass fiber or air total internal reflection is avoided by using a sphere shaped package,
with the diode in the center, so that the light rays hit the surface quite perpendicular, and anti-reflection coating may be added. The package may
be cheap plastic, which may be colored, but this is only for cosmetic reasons or to improve the contrast ratio; the color of the packaging does not
substantially affect the color of the light emitted.

Ultraviolet and blue LEDs

An ultraviolet GaN LED.Blue LEDs are based on the wide band gap semiconductors GaN (gallium nitride) and InGaN (indium gallium nitride). They
can be added to existing red and green LEDs to produce the impression of white light, though white LEDs today rarely use this principle.

The first blue LEDs were made in 1971 by Jacques Pankove (inventor of the gallium nitride LED) at RCA Laboratories.However, these devices were
too feeble to be of much practical use. In the late 1980s, key breakthroughs in GaN epitaxial growth and p-type doping by Akasaki and Amano
(Nagoya, Japan) ushered in the modern era of GaN-based optoelectronic devices. Building upon this foundation, in 1993 high brightness blue LEDs
were demonstrated through the work of Shuji Nakamura at Nichia Corporation.

By the late 1990s, blue LEDs had become widely available. They have an active region consisting of one or more InGaN quantum wells sandwiched
between thicker layers of GaN, called cladding layers. By varying the relative InN-GaN fraction in the InGaN quantum wells, the light emission can
be varied from violet to amber. AlGaN aluminum gallium nitride of varying AlN fraction can be used to manufacture the cladding and quantum well
layers for ultraviolet LEDs, but these devices have not yet reached the level of efficiency and technological maturity of the InGaN-GaN blue/green
devices. If the active quantum well layers are GaN, as opposed to alloyed InGaN or AlGaN, the device will emit near-ultraviolet light with
wavelengths around 350-370 nm. Green LEDs manufactured from the InGaN-GaN system are far more efficient and brighter than green LEDs

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produced with non-nitride material systems.

With aluminium containing nitrides, most often AlGaN and AlGaInN, even shorter wavelengths are achievable. Ultraviolet LEDs are becoming
available on the market, in a range of wavelengths. Near-UV emitters at wavelengths around 375-395 nm are already cheap, common to
encounter eg. as black light lamp replacements for inspection of anti-counterfeiting UV watermarks in some documents and paper currencies.
Shorter wavelength diodes, while substantially more expensive, are commercially available for wavelengths down to 247 nm. As the
photosensitivity of microorganisms approximately matches the absorption spectrum of DNA, with peak at about 260 nm, UV LEDs emitting at
250-270 nm are perspective for disinfecting devices.

White LEDs
Blue LEDs can be added to existing red and green LEDs to produce the impression of white light, though white LEDs today rarely use this principle.
Most "white" LEDs in production today are based on an InGaN-GaN structure, and emit blue light of wavelengths between 450 nm �C 470 nm blue
GaN. These GaN-based, InGaN-active-layer LEDs are covered by a yellowish phosphor coating usually made of cerium-doped yttrium aluminum
garnet (Ce3+:YAG) crystals which have been powdered and bound in a type of viscous adhesive. The LED chip emits blue light, part of which is
efficiently converted to a broad spectrum centered at about 580 nm (yellow) by the Ce3+:YAG. The single crystal form of Ce3+:YAG is actually
considered a scintillator rather than a phosphor. Since yellow light stimulates the red and green receptors of the eye, the resulting mix of blue and
yellow light gives the appearance of white, the resulting shade often called "lunar white". This approach was developed by Nichia and was used by
them from 1996 for manufacturing of white LEDs.

The pale yellow emission of the Ce3+:YAG can be tuned by substituting the cerium with other rare earth elements such as terbium and gadolinium
and can even be further adjusted by substituting some or all of the aluminum in the YAG with gallium. Due to the spectral characteristics of the
diode, the red and green colors of objects in its blue yellow light are not as vivid as in broad-spectrum light. Manufacturing variations and varying
thicknesses in the phosphor make the LEDs produce light with different color temperatures, from warm yellowish to cold bluish; the LEDs have to
be sorted during manufacture by their actual characteristics. Philips Lumileds patented conformal coating process addresses the issue of varying
phosphor thickness, giving the white LEDs a more consistent spectrum of white light.

Spectrum of a "white" LED clearly showing blue light which is directly emitted by the GaN-based LED (peak at about 465 nanometers) and the
more broadband stokes shifted light emitted by the Ce3+:YAG phosphor which extends from around 500 to 700 nanometers.White LEDs can also
be made by coating near ultraviolet (NUV) emitting LEDs with a mixture of high efficiency europium-based red and blue emitting phosphors plus
green emitting copper and aluminum doped zinc sulfide (ZnS:Cu, Al). This is a method analogous to the way fluorescent lamps work. However the
ultraviolet light causes photodegradation to the epoxy resin and many other materials used in LED packaging, causing manufacturing challenges
and shorter lifetimes. This method is less efficient than the blue LED with YAG:Ce phosphor, as the Stokes shift is larger and more energy is
therefore converted to heat, but yields light with better spectral characteristics, which render color better. Due to the higher radiative output of the
ultraviolet LEDs than of the blue ones, both approaches offer comparable brightness.

The newest method used to produce white light LEDs uses no phosphors at all and is based on homoepitaxially grown zinc selenide (ZnSe) on a
ZnSe substrate which simultaneously emits blue light from its active region and yellow light from the substrate.

A new technique developed by Michael Bowers, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, involves coating a blue LED with quantum
dots that glow white in response to the blue light from the LED. This technique produces a warm, yellowish-white light similar to that produced by
incandescent bulbs.

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)

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If the emitting layer material of an LED is an organic compound, it is known as an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED). To function as a
semiconductor, the organic emitting material must have conjugated pi bonds. The emitting material can be a small organic molecule in a
crystalline phase, or a polymer. Polymer materials can be flexible; such LEDs are known as PLEDs or FLEDs.

Compared with regular LEDs, OLEDs are lighter, and polymer LEDs can have the added benefit of being flexible. Some possible future applications
of OLEDs could be:

Inexpensive, flexible displays

Light sources
Wall decorations
Luminous cloth

OLEDs have been used to produce visual displays for portable electronic devices such as cellphones, digital cameras, and MP3 players. Larger
displays have been demonstrated, but their life expectancy is still far too short (<1,000 hours) to be practical.
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Operational parameters and efficiency

Most typical LEDs are designed to operate with no more than 30-60 milliwatts of electrical power. Around 1999, Philips Lumileds introduced power
LEDs capable of continuous use at one watt. These LEDs used much larger semiconductor die sizes to handle the large power input. Also, the
semiconductor dies were mounted to metal slugs to allow for heat removal from the LED die.

One of the key advantages of LED-based led lighting is its high efficiency, as measured by its light output per unit power input. White LEDs quickly
matched and overtook the efficiency of standard incandescent lighting systems. In 2002, Lumileds made 5-watt LEDs available with efficacy of
18�C22 lumens per watt. For comparison, a conventional 60-100 watt incandescent lightbulb produces around 15 lumens/watt. However, note
that standard fluorescent lights produce up to 100 lumens/watt. (The Luminous efficiency page discusses this in more detail.)

In September 2003 a new type of blue LED was demonstrated by the company Cree, Inc. to give 24 mW at 20 mA. This produced a commercially
packaged white light giving 65 lumens per watt at 20 mA, becoming the brightest white LED commercially available at the time, and over four
times more efficient than standard incandescents. In 2006 they demonstrated a prototype with a record white LED efficacy of 131 lm/W at 20 mA.
Also Seoul Semiconductor has plans for 135 lm/W by 2007 and 145 lm/W by 2008, which would be approaching an order of magnitude
improvement over standard incandescents and better even than standard fluorescents.[12]. Nichia Corp. has developed a white light LED with
efficacy of 150 lm/W at a forward current of 20 mA [13].

It should be noted that high-power (�� 1 Watt) LEDs are necessary for practical general led lighting applications. Typical operating currents for
these devices begin at 350 mA. The highest efficiency high-power white LED is claimed by Philips Lumileds Lighting Co. with a luminous efficacy of
115 lm/W (350 mA).

Today, OLEDs operate at substantially lower efficiency than inorganic (crystalline) LEDs. The best efficacy of an OLED so far is about 10% of the
theoretical maximum of 683, so about 68 lm/W. These claim to be much cheaper to fabricate than inorganic LEDs, and large arrays of them can be
deposited on a screen using simple printing methods to create a color graphic display.

Failure modes

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The most common way for LEDs (and diode lasers) to fail is the gradual lowering of light output and loss of efficiency. However, sudden failures
can occur as well.

The mechanism of degradation of the active region, where the radiative recombination occurs, involves nucleation and growth of dislocations; this
requires a presence of an existing defect in the crystal and is accelerated by heat, high current density, and emitted light. Gallium arsenide and
aluminum gallium arsenide are more susceptible to this mechanism than gallium arsenide phosphide and indium phosphide. Due to different
properties of the active regions, gallium nitride and indium gallium nitride are virtually insensitive to this kind of defect; however, high current
density can cause electromigration of atoms out of the active regions, leading to emergence of dislocations and point defects, acting as
nonradiative recombination centers and producing heat instead of light. Ionizing radiation can lead to the creation of such defects as well, which
leads to issues with radiation hardening of circuits containing LEDs (eg. in optoisolators). Early red LEDs were notable for their short lifetime.

White LEDs often use one or more phosphors. The phosphors tend to degrade with heat and age, losing efficiency and causing changes in the
produced light color. Pink LEDs often use an organic phosphor formulation which may degrade after just a few hours of operation causing a major
shift in output color.

High electrical currents at elevated temperatures can cause diffusion of metal atoms from the electrodes into the active region. Some materials,
notably indium tin oxide and silver, are subject to electromigration. In some cases, especially with GaN/InGaN diodes, a barrier metal layer is
used to hinder the electromigration effects. Mechanical stresses, high currents, and corrosive environment can lead to formation of whiskers,
causing short circuits.

High-power LEDs are susceptible to current crowding, nonhomogenous distribution of the current density over the junction. This may lead to
creation of localized hot spots, which poses risk of thermal runaway. Nonhomogenities in the substrate, causing localized loss of thermal
conductivity, aggravate the situation; most common ones are voids caused by incomplete soldering, or by electromigration effects and Kirkendall
voiding. Thermal runaway is a common cause of LED failures.

Laser diodes may be subject to catastrophic optical damage, when the light output exceeds a critical level and causes melting of the facet.

Some materials of the plastic package tend to yellow when subjected to heat, causing partial absorption (and therefore loss of efficiency) of the
affected wavelengths.

Sudden failures are most often caused by thermal stresses. When the epoxy resin used in packaging reaches its glass transition temperature, it
starts rapidly expanding, causing mechanical stresses on the semiconductor and the bonded contact, weakening it or even tearing it off.
Conversely, very low temperatures can cause cracking of the packaging.

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) may cause immediate failure of the semiconductor junction, a permanent shift of its parameters, or latent damage
causing increased rate of degradation. LEDs and lasers grown on sapphire substrate are more susceptible to ESD damage.

LED technology

Considerations in use

LED applications

History

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led lighting

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