Heat conduction mechanism in Al_xGa_1-xN ultraviolet light emitting diode

Abstract

AlxGa1-xN ultra violet light emitting diode (UV LED) has wavelength ranges from 200 to 400nm. UV light has wide range of applications from food processing, health sector, environment and security to space exploration. The energy of one photon of UV light ranges from 3.1 to 6.5 eV which is enough to raise temperature of the active region of the diode above room temperature. The issue is termed as self-heating which shrinks band gap of AlxGa1-xN semiconductor and decreases the emission efficiency of LED. Efficiency droop directly depends on thermal transport in active region of the AlxGa1-xN UV LED. Thus, thermal properties of AlxGa1-xN UV LED should be studied to explore strategies to minimize the issue. In this work we discussed heat conduction mechanism in AlxGa1-xN UV LED. The heat flow in active region is studied by solving heat flux equation in the active region for different material parameter and thermal conductivity. Our study finds that high thermal conductivity of AlxGa1-xN can minimize the self-heating issue and can improve the efficiency of AlxGa1-xN UV LED.