Decoupling contact and mirror: an effective way to improve the reflector for flip-chip InGaN/GaN-based light-emitting diodes

In the conventional fabrication process of the widely-adopted Ni/Ag/Ti/Au reflector for InGaN/GaN-based flip-chip light-emitting diodes (LEDs), the contact and the mirror are entangled together with contrary processing conditions which set constraints to the device performance severely. Here we first report the concept and its effectiveness of decoupling the contact formation and the mirror construction. The ohmic contact is first formed by depositing and annealing an extremely thin layer of Ni/Ag on top of p-GaN. The mirror construction is then carried out by depositing thick layer of Ag/Ti/Au without any annealing. Compared with the conventional fabrication method of the reflector, by which the whole stack of Ni/Ag/Ti/Au is deposited and annealed together, the optical output power is improved by more than 70% at 350 mA without compromising the electrical performance. The mechanism of decoupling the contact and the mirror is analyzed with the assistance of contactless sheet resistance measurement and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) depth profile analysis. (paper)