Tunable, full color tunnel junction nanowire light emitting diodes for smart lighting and display applications

该项目涉及在低成本、大面积基板上开发高效率全色发光二极管（LED），用于新兴的固态照明、全色显示器和消费电子产品。如今，全球LED市场规模已超过150亿美元，年增长率超过20%。然而，制造高效的全彩LED仍然是我们面临的最大挑战之一。目前有机发光二极管（OLED）或氮化镓基无机发光二极管的外量子效率一般在20- 30%的范围内，或更低。在本项目中，我们提出在Si上的高反射Ag层上开发InGaN/GaN/AlGaN线中点芯壳LED，这可以导致极大的外量子效率（>60%），并且因此可以打破常规LED器件的效率瓶颈。通过使用隧道结和选择性区域生长，我们将进一步展示全色、可调纳米线LED阵列，其发热量极低，效率下降可忽略不计，适用于新兴的智能照明和微型全色显示器。这样的级联隧道结LED可以在大电压范围（~ 3至100 V）下操作而不使用任何变压器，从而导致显著降低的成本。该项目还涉及与Future Lighting Solutions（全球最大的LED照明组件供应商之一）和Tran Tek（LED和显示器业务的初创企业）的密切合作。该项目将使至少3名博士生，1名博士后和12名以上的本科生在制造，纳米材料，固态照明和显示器的有效培训。我们坚信，启动这样一个多学科项目迫在眉睫，该项目有望为加拿大快速发展的照明、显示器和消费电子行业带来范式转变。

This project is related to the development of ultrahigh efficiency full color light emitting diodes (LEDs) on low cost, large area substrates for applications in the emerging solid state lighting, full-color displays, and consumer electronics. Today, the global LED market has already reached over 15 billion USD, with an annual growth rate of more than 20%. However, making efficient full color LEDs still represents one of the biggest challenges we face. The external quantum efficiency of current organic LEDs (OLEDs) or GaN-based inorganic LEDs is generally in the range of 20-30%, or less. In this project, we propose to develop InGaN/GaN/AlGaN dot-in-a-wire core-shell LEDs on highly reflective Ag layers on Si, which can lead to an extremely large external quantum efficiency (>60%) and can therefore break the efficiency bottleneck of conventional LED devices. With the use of tunnel junction and selective area growth, we will further demonstrate full color, tunable nanowire LED arrays with extremely low heat generation and negligible efficiency droop for the emerging smart lighting and micro-scale full color displays. Such cascaded tunnel junction LEDs can operate under a large voltage range (~ 3 to 100 V) without the use of any transformers, thereby leading to significantly reduced cost. This project also involves close collaboration with Future Lighting Solutions - one of the world's largest providers of LED lighting components, and Tran Tek, a start-up in the business of LEDs and displays. This project will enable the effective training of at least 3 PhD students, 1 postdoc, and more than 12 undergraduate students in manufacturing, nanomaterials, solid state lighting and displays. We strongly believe it is of imminent interest in launching such a multidisciplinary project, which is poised to provide a paradigm shift in the rapidly evolving lighting, display and consumer electronics industries in Canada.