Oblique electron-beam evaporation of distinctive indium-tin-oxide nanorods for enhanced light extraction from InGaN/GaN light emitting diodes

This paper presents a novel and mass-producible technique to fabricate indium-tin-oxide (ITO) nanorods which serve as an omnidirectional transparent conductive layer (TCL) for InGaN/GaN light emitting diodes (LEDs). The characteristic nanorods, prepared by oblique electron-beam evaporation in a nitrogen ambient, demonstrate high optical transmittance (T>90%) for the wavelength range of 450nm to 900nm. The light output power of a packaged InGaN/GaN LED with the incorporated nanorod layer is increased by 35.1% at an injection current of 350mA, compared to that of a conventional LED. Calculations based on a finite difference time domain (FDTD) method suggest that the extraction enhancement factor can be further improved by increasing the thickness of the nanorod layer, indicating great potential to enhance the luminous intensity of solid-state lighting devices using ITO nanorod structures. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America