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A comprehensive study of surface passivation effect on porous fluorescent silicon carbide (SiC) was carried out to elucidate the luminescence properties by temperature dependent photoluminescence (PL) measurement. The porous structures were prepared using an anodic oxidation etching method and passivated by atomic layer deposited (ALD) Al2O3 films. An impressive enhancement of PL intensity was observed in porous SiC with ALD Al2O3, especially at low temperatures. At temperatures below 150 K, two prominent PL emission peaks located at 517 nm and 650 nm were observed. The broad emission peak at 517 nm was attributed to originate from the surface states in the porous structures, which was supported by X-ray photoelectron spectra characterization. The emission peak at 650 nm is due to donor-acceptor-pairs (DAP) recombination via nitrogen donors and boron-related double D-centers in fluorescent SiC substrates. The results of the present work suggest that the ALD Al2O3 films can effectively suppress the non-radiative recombination for the porous structures on fluorescent SiC. In addition, we provide the evidence based on the low-temperature time-resolved PL that the mechanism behind the PL emission in porous structures is mainly related to the transitions via surface states.

We report an adhesive bonding approach using hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) for silicon carbide (SiC) samples. A hybrid light-emitting diode (LED) was successfully fabricated through bonding a near-ultraviolet (NUV) LED grown on a commercial 4H-SiC substrate to a free-standing boron-nitrogen co-doped fluorescent-SiC epi-layer. The bonding quality and the electrical performance of the hybrid LED device were characterized. Neither voids nor defects were observed which indicates a good bonding quality of the proposed HSQ approach. A strong warm white emission was successfully obtained from the hybrid LED through an electric current injection of 30 mA. Funding Agencies|Innovation Fund Denmark [4106-00018B]

We investigated the effects of different growth facets of 6H-SiC and different voltage waveforms on the porous structure and luminescence properties. The structure formed on the surface after anodic etching significantly changed because of the difference in the growth plane, whereas dendritic and columnar pores were observed inside the Si- and C-face samples. These large porous structures were shown to promote the penetration depth of the atomic-layer-deposited Al2O3 films, and a recorded passivation depth of 30 μm layer was confirmed in C-face porous SiC. From the results using a fluorescence microscope and photoluminescence spectra measurement, it was concluded that the pulsed-voltage etching was preferable for fabricating uniform porous structures compared with the constant-voltage etching. However, the enhancement of the luminescence intensity needs to be further improved to realize high luminescent efficiency in porous fluorescent SiC.

Development of antibiotic resistance is a major challenge for antibiotics as an effective treatment approach of infectious diseases and pathogenic microbes with resistance to antibiotics will become difficult to be treated. Therefore, a new therapy method, which is safe and can inactivate pathogenic microbes effectively without developing a resistance, is highly needed. Ultraviolet irradiation is well known for its ability of effective microbial inactivation and it is widely used in sterilization of inanimate objects based on conventional ultraviolet light sources. Meanwhile, applying ultraviolet irradiation in human disinfection application is an emerging and rapidly progressing field. This review focuses on recent studies in ultraviolet based disinfection methods including both animal and human studies. We will introduce different microbial inactivation mechanisms, which are associated with the ultraviolet irradiation wavelength. Relevant research work will be summarized with a focus on their microbial inactivation effect and safety issues.

AbstarctWe report for the first time a NUV light to white light conversion in a N-B co-doped 6H-SiC (fluorescent SiC) layer containing a hybrid structure. The surface of fluorescent SiC sample contains porous structures fabricated by anodic oxidation method. After passivation by 20 nm thick Al2O3, the photoluminescence intensity from the porous layer was significant enhanced by a factor of more than 12. Using a porous layer of moderate thickness (~10 µm), high-quality white light emission was realized by combining the independent emissions of blue-green emission from the porous layer and yellow emission from the bulk fluorescent SiC layer. A high color rendering index of 81.1 has been achieved. Photoluminescence spectra in porous layers fabricated in both commercial n-type and lab grown N-B co-doped 6H-SiC show two emission peaks centered approximately at 460 nm and 530 nm. Such blue-green emission phenomenon can be attributed to neutral oxygen vacancies and interface C-related surface defects generated dring anodic oxidation process. Porous fluorescent SiC can offer a great flexibility in color rendering by changing the thickness of porous layer and bulk fluorescent layer. Such a novel approach opens a new perspective for the development of high performance and rare-earth element free white light emitting materials.

The influence of thickness of atomic layer deposited Al2O3 films on nanotextured fluorescent 6H-SiC passivation is investigated. The passivation effect on the light emission has been characterized by photoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence at room temperature. The results show that 20nm thickness of Al2O3 layer is favorable to observe a large photoluminescence enhancement (25.9%) and long carrier lifetime (0.86ms). This is a strong indication for an interface hydrogenation that takes place during post-thermal annealing. These result show that an Al2O3 layer could serve as passivation in fluorescent SiC based white LEDs applications.

We have investigated the use of nanopillar structures on high indium content InGaN amber multiple quantum well (MQW) samples to enhance the emission efficiency. A significant emission enhancement was observed which can be attributed to the enhancement of internal quantum efficiency and light extraction efficiency. The size-dependent strain relaxation effect was characterized by photoluminescence, Raman spectroscopy and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements. In addition, the light extraction efficiency of different MQW samples was studied by finite-different time-domain simulations. Compared to the as-grown sample, the nanopillar amber MQW sample with a diameter of 300 nm has demonstrated an emission enhancement by a factor of 23.8.

LEDs have a large potential in many dental and oral applications. Areas such as photo polymerization, fluorescence imaging, photodynamic therapy, and photoactivated disinfection are important future candidates for LED based diagnostics and treatment in dentistry.

Porous silicon carbide (B–N co-doped SiC) produced by anodic oxidation showed strong photoluminescence (PL) at around 520 nm excited by a 375 nm laser. The porous SiC samples were passivated by atomic layer deposited (ALD) aluminum oxide (Al2O3) films, resulting in a significant enhancement of the PL intensity (up to 689%). The effect of thickness, annealing temperature, annealing duration and precursor purge time on the PL intensity of ALD Al2O3 films was investigated. In order to investigate the penetration depth and passivation effect in porous SiC, the samples were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and time-resolved PL. The optimized passivation conditions (20 nm Al2O3 deposited at 160 °C with purge time of 20 s, followed by an annealing for 5 min at 350 °C) for porous SiC were achieved and the results indicate that surface passivation by ALD Al2O3 thin films is a very effective method to enhance the luminescence efficiency of porous SiC.

Polycrystalline SiC containing boron and nitrogen are used in growth of fluorescent SiC for white LEDs. Two types of doped polycrystalline SiC have been studied in detail with secondary ion mass spectrometry: sintered SiC and poly-SiC prepared by sublimation in a physical vapor transport setup. The materials are co-doped materials with nitrogen and boron to a concentration of 1x1018 cm-3 and 1x1019 cm-3, respectively. Depth profiles as well as ion images have been recorded. According to ocular inspection, the analyzed poly-SiC consists mainly of 4H-SiC and 6H-SiC grains. In these grains, the boron concentration is higher and the nitrogen concentration is lower in the 6H-SiC compared to the 4H-SiC polytype. No inter-diffusion between grains is observed.

Homoepitaxial layers of fluorescent 4H-SiC were grown on 4 degree off-axis substrates by sublimation epitaxy. Luminescence in the green spectral range was obtained by co-doping with nitrogen and boron utilizing donor-acceptor pair luminescence. This concept opens possibilities to explore green light emitting diodes using a new materials platform.

Polycrystalline doped SiC act as source for fluorescent SiC. We have studied the growth of individual grains with different polytypes in the source material. We show an evolution and orientation of grains of different polytypes in polycrystalline SiC ingots grown by the Physical Vapor Transport method. The grain influence on the growth rate of fluorescent SiC layers grown by a sublimation epitaxial process is discussed in respect of surface kinetics.

Surface nanocones on 6H-SiC have been developed and demonstrated as an effective method of enhancing the light extraction efficiency from fluorescent SiC layers. The surface reflectance, measured from the opposite direction of light emission, over a broad bandwidth range is significantly suppressed from 20.5% to 1.0 % after introducing the sub-wavelength structures. An omnidirectional light harvesting enhancement (>91%), is also achieved which promotes fluorescent SiC as a good candidate of wavelength converter for white light-emitting diodes.

Surface plasmon coupling with light-emitters and surface nano-patterning have widely been used separately to improve low efficiency InGaN light-emitting diodes. We demonstrate a method where dielectric nano-patterning and Ag nanoparticles (NPs) are combined to provide both light extraction and internal quantum efficiency enhancement for InGaN/GaN quantum-well light-emitters. By fabricating dielectric nano-rod pattern on the GaN surface, an optical coating that improves the light extraction is obtained, and furthermore has a low refractive index which blue-shifts the plasmonic resonance of Ag NPs towards the emission wavelength. We investigate emission components from both the GaN and sapphire surface of the semiconductor crystal and show that Ag NPs on dielectric nano-pattern compared to a planar surface, result in a stronger enhancement.

Nitrogen-boron doped 6H-SiC epilayers grown on low off-axis 6H-SiC substrates have been characterized by photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy. The photoluminescence results show that a doping larger than 1018 cm-3 is favorable to observe the luminescence and addition of nitrogen is resulting in an increased luminescence. A dopant concentration difference larger than 4x1018 cm-3 is proposed to achieve intense photoluminescence. Raman spectroscopy further confirmed the doping type and concentrations for the samples. The results indicate that N-B doped SiC is being a good wavelength converter in white LEDs applications.

We report an approach of using an interlayer of single layer graphene (SLG) for electroluminescence (EL) enhancement of an InGaN/GaN-based near-ultraviolet (NUV) light-emitting diode (LED) with an aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO)-based current spreading layer (CSL). AZO-based CSLs with and without a SLG interlayer were fabricated on the NUV LED epi-wafers. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristic and the EL intensity were measured and compared. We find that the LED without the SLG interlayer can possess a 40% larger series resistance. Furthermore, a 95% EL enhancement was achieved by the employment of the SLG interlayer.

Porous SiC co-doped with B and N was passivated by atomic layer deposited (ALD) Al 2 O 3 films to enhance the photoluminescence. After optimizing the deposition conditions, as high as 14.9 times photoluminescence enhancement has been achieved.

Nanoparticles of tin-doped ferrites Sn x Fe 3− x O 4 ( x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 1.0) were prepared by the precipitation exchange method. The particles of all specimens are crystalline with mean diameter in the range of 4–8 nm, and the lattice parameters enlarge with increasing tin content. Magnetization and Mossbauer data indicate that the specimens are paramagnetic. The saturation magnetization decreases, as well as the magnetization and the coercive field increase, with increasing tin-content, the possible causes of which were discussed.

Enhanced transmittance of 6H-SiC with nanocone structures were achieved by using self-assembled Au nanoparticles as etching mask. HF passivation process of nanocone structures was investigated to further improve the transmittance. The max transmittance of structured SiC is significantly improved by 10%.

Surface plasmonics from metal nanoparticles have been demonstrated as an effective way of improving the performance of low-efficiency light emitters. However, reducing the inherent losses of the metal nanoparticles remains a challenge. Here we study the enhancement properties by Ag nanoparticles for InGaN/GaN quantum-well structures. By using a thin SiN dielectric layer between Ag and GaN we manage to modify and improve surface plasmon coupling effects, and we attribute this to the improved scattering of the nanoparticles at the quantum-well emission wavelength. The results are interpreted using numerical simulations, where absorption and scattering cross-sections are studied for different sized particles on GaN and GaN/SiN substrates.

Silicon carbide (SiC) has played a key role in power electronics thanks to its unique physical properties like wide bandgap, high breakdown field, etc. During the past decade, SiC is also becoming more and more active in optoelectronics thanks to the progress in materials growth and nanofabrication. This paper will review the advances in fluorescent SiC for white light-emitting diodes, covering the poly-crystalline doped SiC source material growth, single crystalline epitaxy growth of fluorescent SiC, and nanofabrication of SiC to enhance the extraction efficiency for fluorescent SiC based white LEDs.

The impedance characteristics of high-speed oxide-confined 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers have been studied with the aim of identifying the importance of device parasitics for the modulation bandwidth. Through equivalent circuit modeling, it is confirmed that device parasitics have a major impact on the bandwidth and the importance of each individual circuit element has been investigated. According to the extrapolation of the parameters derived from S11 measurements below 20 GHz towards higher frequencies and assuming that the mesa capacitance can be reduced by adding a few extra oxide layers without significantly affecting series resistance, our model predicts that the 3-dB parasitic frequency can be increased from 22 to above 30 GHz. Accounting also for bandwidth limitations due to thermal effects, we expect an increase of the modulation bandwidth of several gigahertz which may enable direct current modulation at 40 Gb/s.

We demonstrate a time-efficient and low-cost approach to fabricate Si3N4 coated nanodome structures in fluorescent SiC. Nanosphere lithography is used as the nanopatterning method and SiC nanodome structures with Si3N4 coating are formed via dry etching and thin film deposition process. By using this method, a significant broadband surface antireflection and a considerable omnidirectional luminescence enhancement are obtained. The experimental observations are then supported by numerical simulations. It is believed that our fabrication method will be well suitable for large-scale production in the future.

Nanopillars have been fabricated on InGaN/GaN light-emitting diodes using nanosphere lithography. With HCl treatment and SiN passivation a photoluminescence improvement by a factor of 7.8 was obtained compared to the untreated nanopillar structure.

Donor-acceptor co-doped silicon carbide layers are promising light converters for novel monolithic all-semiconductor LEDs due to their broad-band donor-acceptor pair luminescence and potentially high internal quantum efficiency. Besides appropriate doping concentrations yielding low radiative lifetimes, high nonradiative lifetimes are crucial for efficient light conversion.Despite the excellent crystalline quality that can generally be obtained by sublimation epitaxy according to XRD measurements, the role of defects in f-SiC is not yet well understood. Recent results from room temperature photoluminescence, charge carrier lifetime measurements by microwave detected photoconductivity and internal quantum efficiency measurements suggest that the internal quantum efficiency of f-SiC layers is significantly affected by the incorporation of defects during epitaxy. Defect formation seems to be related to nitrogen incorporation from the growth ambient while nitrogen doping from the source yielded better results regarding quantum efficiency. To investigate the presence of different types of defects in f-SiC layers and their impact on the fluorescent properties of f-SiC, this study will focus on defect characterization of f-SiC layers grown under different process conditions, especially different growth ambient and using differently doped source material. The results may help to identify critical process parameters and reduce the concentration of relevant defects.

Ag nanodisks are fabricated on GaN-based LED to enhance emission efficiency. Nanosphere lithography is used to obtain a periodic nano-structure, and a photoluminescence enhancement of 2.7 is reported with Ag nanodisk diameter of 330 nm.

An approach of fabricating pseudoperiodic antireflective subwavelength structures on silicon carbide by using self-assembled Au nanopatterns as etching mask is demonstrated. The nanopatterning process is more time-efficiency than the e-beam lithography or nanoimprint lithography process. The influences of the reactive-ion etching conditions and deposited Au film thickness to the subwavelength structure profile and its corresponding surface reflectance have been systematically investigated. Under the optimal experimental conditions, the average reflectance of the silicon carbide in the range of 390x02013;784 nm is dramatically suppressed from 21.0x00025; to 1.9x00025; after introducing the pseudoperiodic nanostructures. A luminescence enhancement of 226x00025; was achieved at an emission angle of 20x000B0; on the fluorescent silicon carbide. Meanwhile, the angle-resolved photoluminescence study presents a considerable omnidirectional luminescence enhancement.

Nano-textured surfaces have played a key role in optoelectronic materials to enhance the light extraction efficiency. In this work, morphology and optical properties of nano-textured SiC covered with atomic layer deposited (ALD) TiO2 were investigated. In order to obtain a high quality surface for TiO2 deposition, a three-step cleaning procedure was introduced after RIE etching. The morphology of anatase TiO2 indicates that the nano-textured substrate has a much higher surface nucleated grain density than a flat substrate at the beginning of the deposition process. The corresponding reflectance increases with TiO2 thickness due to increased surface diffuse reflection. The passivation effect of ALD TiO2 thin film on the nano-textured fluorescent 6H-SiC sample was also investigated and a PL intensity improvement of 8.05% was obtained due to the surface passivation.

Porous 6H-SiC samples with different thicknesses were fabricated through anodic etching in diluted hydrofluoric acid. Scanning electron microscope images show that the dendritic pore formation in 6HSiC is anisotropic, which has different lateral and vertical formation rates. Strong photoluminescence was observed and the etching process was optimized in terms of etching time and thickness. Enormous enhancement as well as redshift and broadening of photoluminescence spectra were observed after the passivation by atomic layer deposited Al2O3 and TiO2 films. No obvious luminescence was observed above the 6H-SiC crystal band gap, which suggests that the strong photoluminescence is ascribed tosurface state produced during the anodic etching.

White light-emitting diodes (LEDs) consisting of a nitride-based blue LED chip and phosphor are very promising candidates for the general lighting applications as energy-saving sources. Recently, donor-acceptor doped fluorescent SiC has been proven as a highly efficient wavelength converter material much superior to the phosphors in terms of high color rendering index value and long lifetime. The light extraction efficiency of the fluorescent SiC based all semiconductor LED light sources is usually low due to the large refractive index difference between the semiconductor and air. In order to enhance the extraction efficiency, we present a simple method to fabricate the pseudo-periodic moth-eye structures on the surface of the fluorescent SiC. A thin gold layer is deposited on the fluorescent SiC first. Then the thin gold layer is treated by rapid thermal processing. After annealing, the thin gold layer turns into discontinuous nano-islands. The average size of the islands is dependent on the annealing condition which could be well controlled. By using the reactive-ion etching, pseudo-periodic moth-eye structures would be obtained using the gold nano-islands as a mask layer. Reactive-ion etching conditions are carefully optimized to obtain the lowest surface reflection performance of the fabricated structures. Significant omnidirectional luminescence enhancement (226.0 %) was achieved from the angle-resolved photoluminescence measurement, which proves the pseudo-periodic moth-eye structure as an effective and simple method to enhance the extraction efficiency of fluorescent SiC based white LEDs.

In the present work, antireflective sub-wavelength structures have been fabricated on fluorescent 6H-SiC to enhance the white light extraction efficiency by using the reactive-ion etching method. Broadband and omnidirectional antireflection characteristics show that 6H-SiC with antireflective sub-wavelength structures suppress the average surface reflection significantly from 20.5 % to 1.01 % over a wide spectral range of 390-784 nm. The luminescence intensity of the fluorescent 6H-SiC could be enhanced in the whole emission angle range. It maintains an enhancement larger than 91 % up to the incident angle of 70 degrees, while the largest enhancement of 115.4 % could be obtained at 16 degrees. The antireflective sub-wavelength structures on fluorescent 6H-SiC could also preserve the luminescence spectral profile at a large emission angle by eliminating the Fabry-Perot microcavity interference effect.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are penetrating into the huge market of general lighting because they are energy saving and environmentally friendly. The big advantage of LED light sources, compared to traditional incandescent lamps and fluorescent light tubes, is the flexible spectral design to make white light using different color mixing schemes. The spectral design flexibility of white LED light sources will promote them for novel applications to improve the life quality of human beings. As an initial exploration to make use of the spectral design flexibility, we present an example: 'no blue' white LED light source for sufferers of disease Porphyria. An LED light source prototype, made of high brightness commercial LEDs applying an optical filter, was tested by a patient suffering from Porphyria. Preliminary results have shown that the sufferer could withstand the light source for much longer time than the standard light source. At last future perspectives on spectral design flexibility of LED light sources improving human being's life will be discussed, with focus on the light and health. The good health is ensured by the spectrum optimized so that vital hormones (melatonin and serotonin) are produced during times when they support human daily rhythm.

Silicon carbide (SiC) is widely used as substrate for nitride based light emitting diodes (LEDs). For today’s white LEDs mainly a sandwich structure of a blue or ultra violet LED and a yellowish phosphorus is used. In the frame of European project we study a concept to implement the functionality of the phosphorous into the SiC substrate to make an all semiconductor white LED. In recent years, due to the improvement of the crystalline quality of SiC by the so called fast sublimation growth process (FSGP), high room temperature internal quantum efficiencies of the yellow donor acceptor pair luminescence of 6H-SiC co-doped with nitrogen and boron has been achieved [1][2]. The source is the rate determining step, and is expected to be determining the fluorescent properties by introducing dopants to the layer from the source. The optimization process of the polycrystalline, co-doped SiC:B,N source material and its impact on the FSPG epitaxial process, in particular the influence on the brightness of the is presented. In particular, the doping properties of the poly-SiC source material influence on the brightness of the fluorescent 6H-SiC. In addition we have investigated how the grain orientation of the poly-SiC source material changes the growth rate during the fast epitaxial growth process. Using shadow masks we have isolated sublimation from selected SiC grains with varying crystallographic orientation and measured the average growth rate (Fig. 1). The growth rate increases with increasing off-angle from (0001) crystallographic orientation which is attributed to surface kinetics during sublimation.

We demonstrate a light-extraction approach using a whispering gallery resonators array. The wavelength-scale resonant dielectric nanospheres support whispering gallery modes, which can be coupled with the confined waveguide modes inside the bulk material, thus dramatically improving light extraction. Broadband light-extraction enhancement across the entire visible spectral range is achieved by exciting three low-order and low-quality-factor resonances. As an example, the broadband extraction enhancement of about 50% is obtained for the emission of fluorescent SiC at all the tested angles. The experimental results are supported by numerical simulations. Our light-extraction strategy could enable the manufacturing of high-throughput, nondestructive, and affordable optical coating in a variety of optical devices.

The strong photoluminescence from f-SiC was achieved after the optimization of the B and N concentrations. Surface nanostructures were successfully applied to enhance the extraction efficiency. f-SiC is a promising wavelength convertor for white LEDs.

The preparation and application of co-doped polycrystalline SiC as source in sublimation growth of fluorescent layers is a complex topic. Photoluminescence topographies of luminescent 6H-SiC layers and their corresponding source crystals have been studied in order to investigate the dependence of the epitaxial growth on the source material. It is shown that the homogeneity concerning the dopant incorporation and the layer luminescence intensity does not depend on the characteristics of the PVT grown source material. Therefore co-doped polycrystalline SiC is a promising source material in fast sublimation growth of luminescent 6H-SiC.

Recently it was shown a new approach based on all-semiconductor material technology which is composed with a near ultra-violet GaN LED excitation source and fluorescent silicon carbide (f-6H-SiC) substrate which generates a visible broad spectral light by N and B dopants and an efficient donor to acceptor pair recombination [1,2]. This combination can achieve higher electric-light conversion efficiency and high color rendering in comparison with today’s used blue GaN LED based and phosphors. The devices are promising candidates for general lightning applications and may obtain stability/reproducibility, and potentially low cost in high performance LEDs. However, there are still many problems to obtain best optimization for f-6H-SiC material since neither carrier transport, nor the carrier recombination is known in such co-doped carbides. From the existing data of carrier lifetimes in the SiC materials it is impossible to calculate requirements for epilayer thicknesses, for surfaces and interfaces that can provide sink for non-intentional losses of emission probability. In this work we report on carrier lifetime studies in f-6H-SiC epitaxial growth layers that are co-doped by N and B impurities. Epitaxial samples were grown by a sublimation growth process using a control of source materials. Variable concentration of B and N dopants was uniform over epitaxial thicknesses 45-60 m as was obtained by SIMS measurements (Table 1). Samples had different PL intensity at 300 K. Free-carrier-absorption technique under co-linear and orthogonal probe geometry was used to measure carrier lifetimes in the layers under variable injection conditions. Same results are shown in Fig. 1 exaggerating the fact that longer electron lifetime responsible for higher emission and n-type doping should prevail the p-type doping in active layer of 6H-SiC. An appropriate model for explaining experimental findings will be presented together with an appropriate model for the LED device.

Different sizes of Ge nanocrystals embedded in a SiO2 matrix were formed by PECVD, and analyzed by TEM. Size effect of Ge nanocystals was demonstrated by Raman spectroscopy after excluding the thermal effect.