A surface roughening scheme with Si3N4-coated GaN nanowire (NW) arrays is proposed to improve the light extraction efficiency of GaN-based vertical light-emitting diodes (VLEDs). The scheme allows a graded refractive index that varies from 2.5 (GaN) to 1.9–2.0 (Si3N4) to 1 (air). Experimental results show that the use of 0.8-µm-long GaN NW arrays coated with a 250-nm-thick Si3N4 film enhances the light output power by 28.7% at 350 mA compared with that of regular VLEDs with a KOH-roughened surface. This enhancement is attributed to the Si3N4/GaN NW arrays effectively releasing total internal reflection and minimizing Fresnel loss.

This study proposed a light trapping module to improve the light path in a solar cell in order to increase its light absorption efficiency. The microlens on a transparent substrate concentrates incident light into several light beams, which it leads into the optical channel on the back side. The optical channel is designed by coating highly reflective metals on the same transparent substrate, then an optical channel opening is made at the light beam focus so the light beams can pass through the optical channel and irradiate the solar cell. The light reflected by the solar cell is reflected again by the metal surface to the upper film of the solar cell, thus, increasing the absorption efficiency of the solar cell and reducing the film thickness of the solar cell to obtain better electrical properties. In this simulation the refractive index of the microlens was set as 1.43, the optical channel was 25 μm and the spacing was 0.27 mm, thus, the simulated absorption efficiency reached over 80%. The feasibility of this study was thus proved.