Light-Emitting Diodes in the Solid-State Lighting

Systems

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna1

1Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy

Abstract: Red and green light-emitting diodes (LEDs) had been produced for several decades before blue emitting
diodes, suitable for lighting applications, were widely available. Today, we have the possibility of combining the
three fundamental colours to have a bright white light. And therefore, a new form of lighting, the solid-state
lighting, has now become a reality. Here we discuss LEDs and some of their applications in displays and lamps.

Keywords: Semiconductors, Light-Emitting Diodes, Solid-State Lighting Systems, LEDs, GaAs, GaN, InGaN.

1. Introduction nearly 100 times brighter of the previous LEDs [2].

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided Nakamura’s group followed with a lower-cost doping
to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2014 to Isamu method and several innovations that increased quality
Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, and brightness, so that Nakamura’s company was the
because of their fundamental works on blue light- first to begin selling blue p-n junction LEDs [2].
emitting diodes (LEDs). In his will, Alfred Nobel
dictated that the winners were persons who had The gallium nitride is then the semiconducting
conferred great benefit to humankind. In the spirit of material, which is at the center of a new industry, that
the founder then, this year the Prize is awarding the of the solid-state lighting (SSL), where solid-state
creation of a new light source, which is more energy- devices are producing light. For many decades,
efficient and environment-friendly of the previous chemists, physicists, and engineers in the United
ones, where a bright white light is obtained by using a States and Japan struggled with the persistent material
combination of red, green and blue lights emitted by challenges GaN was presenting, to meet the requests
diodes [1]. of potential markets in lighting and consumer
electronics [3]. Competition among firms led to the
The Japanese Nobel Laureates developed blue light shaping of gallium nitride into a critical material for
from semiconductors in the early 1990s. Red and the manufacture of light emitting diodes [3]. Today,
green emitting diodes had been already produced and the consequence of all these researches is the advent
used from several years, but without a blue emitting of LED lamps, which are long lasting and efficient
diode, the white light was impossible. Shuji alternatives to older light sources.
Nakamura, working for a small company called
Nichia Chemical Industries, was responsible for Many consider the LED lamps so revolutionary, as it
developing some manufacturing processes that was the advent of the incandescent lamps at the
brought first truly bright blue LEDs to market. beginning of the XX century. For this reason, this new
However [2,3], this achievement could not have been technology deserves some discussions; let us start
done without the work of Akasaki and Amano, who from the light-emitting diodes, their history and
deeply studied gallium nitride (GaN), the material physics, and continue with some applications of SSL
used to obtain the blue LEDs, after the Radio illumination system.
Corporation of America, RCA, abandoned it in the
early 1970s. At a laboratory of Nagoya University, 2. History of LEDs
Akasaki and his doctoral student Amano developed a The incandescent light bulbs had lit up our life since
way to make high-quality gallium nitride, producing the beginning of the Twentieth Century, when they
a buffer layer of aluminum nitride on top of a sapphire superseded the first electric lamps, which were the
substrate, before growing it. The buffer layer better carbon-arc lamps [5]. In the incandescent bulbs, a
matched the crystal structures, and in this manner, the large part of the power consumed is converted into
flaws occurring in the production of GaN-based LEDs heat rather than visible light [6]. Since other electrical
were strongly reduced. This work, published in 1986 light sources are more effective, the incandescent
[4], attracted the attention of Nakamura. In 1989, the bulbs raise some financial and ecological concerns
Akasaki’s team announced the first p-n junction LED, [7]. The first alternative to the incandescent light bulb

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Light-Emitting Diodes in the Solid-State Lighting Systems

was the high-efficiency compact fluorescent lamp, or In fact, visible and infrared LEDs were extremely
CFL [8]. However, CFLs have problems about the costly until, in 1968, Monsanto Company organized a
inclusion of mercury in the design and have, mass-production of visible LEDs for indicators, using
sometimes, a color quite different from that of gallium arsenide phosphide (GaAsP) [17]. Hewlett
incandescent lamps. Today, the solution for a better Packard (HP) introduced these LEDs, which were
lighting system seems to be the use of LEDs. bright enough only for use as indicators, as the light
output was not enough to illuminate an area [12].
The light-emitting diodes, LEDs, have been known Later, other colors became available (Figure 1), and
for many years. They are based on the LED materials more advanced, so that the light output
electroluminescence, which is the production of light rose, while maintaining efficiency at acceptable levels
by the flow of electrons. This phenomenon was [12]. At last, in 1994, Nakamura produced the first
discovered in 1907 by H.J. Round of Marconi high-brightness blue LED based on indium gallium
Laboratories, who used a crystal of silicon carbide nitride (InGaN) [18]. Today we have LEDs of several
(SiC) and a cat's-whisker detector to show it [9,10]. colours in digital clocks, flashlights and traffic
Oleg Losev, a Russian scientist, is the first who signals. Only recently, however, companies started
created a LED and reported a detailed study of it in a manufacturing them in standard, replacement-size
publication of 1927 [10]. In fact, in 1920s, Losev light bulb form, so that the LED lamps can be used
studied the light emission from zinc oxide and silicon into a lamp holder like the old incandescent bulbs.
carbide crystal rectifier diodes, which were used in
radio receivers. He recognized the cold, non-thermal, 3. LED Physics
nature of this emission, concluding that LED emission A LED is a component of the solid-state lighting
was related to the diode action [10]. In 1929, in (SSL) technology. Instead of emitting light from an
introducing a patent, Losev wrote that LEDs could be incandescent wire or from a gas, a SSL device emits
used as detectors in optical relays for fast telegraphic light from the bulk of a semiconducting material by
and telephone communications, transmission of electroluminescence. This is the result of radiative
images and other applications, understanding the recombination of electrons and holes, where the
potential of LEDs for telecommunications [10]. excited electrons release energy as photons. In LEDs,
prior to recombination, electrons and holes are
In 1955, Rubin Braunstein, of the Radio Corporation separated by doping the material to form a p-n
of America (RCA), reported on infrared emission junction, made of positively and negatively charged
from gallium arsenide (GaAs) and other components. The positive layer has holes, that is,
semiconductor alloys [11]. After, in 1957, Braunstein vacancies of electrons; the negative layer has free
further demonstrated that such devices could be used electrons than can move in it. When the flow of
for non-radio communication across a short distance. electrons from the negative to the positive layer is
In 1962, the Texas Instruments began a project to activated, the electrons emit light as they have a
manufacture infrared diodes, and in the October of radiative recombination with holes. The wavelength
that year, announced the first LED commercial of the light emitted, and thus its color, depends on the
product, which employed a pure GaAs crystal to emit band gap energy, that is, the energy difference
a 900 nm output [12]. During the same year, Nick between the top of the valence band and the bottom of
Holonyak Jr., while working at General Electric the conduction band, possessed by the materials
Company [13], developed the first commercial visible giving the p-n junction. The emission of photons is
red LED. A former graduate student of Holonyak, also depending on the type, direct or indirect, of the
George Craford, invented the first yellow LED and band gap. Among the materials used for LEDs, we
improved the brightness of red and red-orange LEDs find those with a direct band gap with energies
by a factor of ten in 1972 [14]. corresponding to light ranging from near-infrared to
near-ultraviolet light [19], and those, such as gallium
The first applications of LEDs were in the phosphide (GaP), having indirect band gaps. Let us
replacements for incandescent and neon indicator consider that GaP is used in the manufacture of low-
lamps and in the seven-segment displays (SSD), first cost red, orange, and green LEDs, with low to medium
in expensive equipment such as laboratory and brightness, since the 1960s.
electronics test equipment, then later in TVs, radios,
telephones, calculators and watches [15]. It seems, as Semiconductors can have direct or indirect band gaps
told in [15], that seven-segment displays can be found (see Figure 2). A certain crystal momentum, and its
in patents as early as 1908. These displays did not corresponding wave k-vector in the Brillouin Zone,
achieve widespread use until the advent of LEDs; characterizes the minimum energy state of the
today, however, for many applications, dot-matrix conduction band; another k-vector characterizes the
liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have largely maximum energy state of the valence band. If these
superseded the LED displays [16]. two k-vectors are the same, we have a direct gap. If
they are different, there is an indirect gap. When the
band gap is direct, an electron can recombine with a

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Light-Emitting Diodes in the Solid-State Lighting Systems

hole of the same momentum, directly emitting a normal to the encapsulate-air interface. The standard
photon. This photon has a relative large wavelength, 5mm LED package is not suited to have a sufficient
and therefore a negligible wavenumber, when heat transfer to maintain the LED cool during
compared to lattice k-vectors. Therefore, the operation. Then, a new package for high-power LEDs
conservation of the total crystal momentum is easily has been developed: it is the flip-chip package that we
fulfilled. When the gap is indirect, the probability of a can see in the Figure 3, on the right [26,27].
photon emission is lower, because electrons must Today, LEDs have an emission high enough allowing
transfer momentum to the phonons of the crystal the production of LED lamps, which are nothing else
lattice [20]. Gallium phosphide for instance, with its that LEDs assembled into light bulbs to be used in the
normal cubic crystal structure having an indirect band common lighting fixtures. These lamps have a
gap, is severely limited in its emission efficiency. To lifespan and electrical efficiency, which are several
increase the emission, GaP nanowires with pure times better than incandescent lamps. Even when
hexagonal crystal structure having a direct band gap compared with the fluorescent lamps, LEDs are
had been prepared, with a strong photoluminescence significantly better. Let us remark that, like the
at a wavelength of 594 nm. In these nanowires, the traditional incandescent lamps, LEDs have a full
incorporation of aluminum or arsenic can tune the brightness without needing for a warm-up time, which
emitted wavelength across an important range of the is required by most fluorescent lamps. Since LEDs
visible light spectrum. This approach to crystal have not an isotropic emission, the lamps need a
structure engineering enables new pathways for specific design, and, because the emission of a single
tailoring the materials properties [21,22]. LEDs is less than that of incandescent and compact
fluorescent lamps, several LEDs are used to form the
The active regions of LEDs can be created by epitaxy, lamp. Moreover, LEDs need direct current and then a
in a process that consists essentially by growing a circuit to convert the alternating current.
layer of crystal doped with one type of dopant on top
of a layer of crystal doped with another type of dopant. 5. Advantages of LEDs
Actually, epitaxy is a technology used in the It is highly probable that in the future many household
fabrication of integrated crystalline layers of different lighting fixtures will be equipped with LED lamps. A
materials, especially if based on GaN and InGaN, good reason to want them is in their reduced energy
grown on sapphire substrates [23,24]. For what use, since LEDs produce light losing far less energy
concerns the internal electroluminescence of LEDs, it to heat than incandescent lamps. LED lamps are
is high, but, due to the very high refractive indices of around 80 percent more efficient, and are more
the materials used for them (2.5 for GaN and 1.7 for efficient than CFLs too. A LED bulb last up to 25,000
sapphire), the external luminescence is limited [25]. hours, compared with 2,000 hours for a standard bulb
In fact, a large part of the light is reflected at the and 8,000 for a compact fluorescent, which means a
material/air interface back into the bulk of the chip. life of 17 years if the bulb is on four hours a day [28].
Therefore, besides the development of luminescent The annual energy use is then reduced and the
materials, another important aspect of LEDs corresponding annual CO2 emission in atmosphere.
production is the light extraction from them. Moreover, LED lamps produce the same white light
Commonly, the reflection is reduced by using a dome- as that of incandescent bulbs.
shaped encapsulation of the diode, so that the emitted
rays of light strike the LED surface package Today, LED lamps are expensive. These lamps are of
perpendicularly. Substrates that are transparent to the course saving money in the long run, because we need
emitted wavelength, and backed by a reflective layer, to replace them every decade or two, and the electric
increase the LED efficiency. bill is reduced. However, their upfront cost is
prohibitive for people who simply cannot spend
4. LED Packages several hundred dollars for equipping the fixtures of
Let us discuss the packaging of LEDs with more their houses with such bulbs. Consequently, price is
details. The fabricated LED chips are mounted in a the only real problem with LED light bulbs; but
package that consists of two electrical leads, a probably, it could change in the next future.
transparent optical window for the escape of light and
thermal paths for heat dissipation. A typical package 6. LED Displays
for low-power devices is given in the Figure 3 (on the Today, LEDs are used to create displays, in particular
left). The active device is bonded or soldered to the the flat panel displays made of large arrays of light-
bottom of a cup-like depression, the reflector cup, emitting diodes. Typically, we find them outdoors in
with one of the lead wires, usually the cathode lead. A store signs, billboards and for the signs on public
bond wire connects the LED top contact to the other transport vehicles. The LED panels are of two types:
lead wire, usually the anode lead. This package is the conventional one using discrete LEDs, and the
frequently referred to as the 5mm or T1-3/4 package new one using surface-mounted devices (SMDs).
[26]: its encapsulating material has a hemispherical Most outdoor screens have discrete LEDs, which are
shape to maintain the incidence of the rays of light mounted to form full-color pixels in clusters of red,

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Light-Emitting Diodes in the Solid-State Lighting Systems

green, and blue individual diodes, each having its own preserve pigments on the walls. Being not the best for
package. However, most indoors screens are based on admiring the Chapel, on October 29, 2014, halogen
surface mount device
the SMD technology, a trend that is now extending to lamps had been replaced by a system composed of
the outdoor market, where SMD pixels are consisting about 7,000 LEDs, mounted in some fixtures placed
of red, green, and blue diodes, each smaller than a around the perimeter of the Chapel. The system was
pinhead, set very close together and mounted in a provided by Osram, the German lighting
single package (see for instance, Fig.3 top-right). manufacturer [32]. The new lighting is aimed
separate LEDs Pin Through Hole also used precisely in the same direction the natural light
Discrete LEDs are also known as PTH LEDs, that is, entered the windows, with its fixtures hidden below
Plating Through Holes LEDs (see Fig.3, top-left). them. In 2013, thank of Toshiba, Paris's Louvre
They are welded on the outside of the electronic Museum had LEDs to light, among other works,
board, and come into contact with the card using the Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Also, the London's
two feet (anode and cathode) [29]. With the new SMD National Portrait Gallery, the Amsterdam's
technology, LEDs are always mounted on the surface Rijksmuseum, and the Boston's Museum of Fine Arts
of the cards. The conventional PTH LEDs are had installed LED lighting systems [33].
important for the market of high-brightness LEDs for
outdoor video wall applications, because they have Of course, we have also the LED Art, which is a form
good primary optics, and it is difficult to replace them of light art obtained by means of light-emitting
with SMD LEDs and have the same final results [29]. diodes. Some artists use this art for producing
However, the trend is to use SMD technology for temporary pieces in public locations. For instance,
outdoor displays too, because it is the same used for colored “LED throwies” can be used to “paint”
the package platform of lighting lamps [29]. metallic objects, like public sculptures or road
infrastructures, without damaging them [34].
For television screens, there are high-brightness Moreover, LEDs can become glowing accessories for
diodes able to generate a wide spectrum of colors: clothing and shoes, endowed with special features
these screens are based on organic light-emitting such as lighting mode, additional effects and control,
diodes (OLEDs). An organic light-emitting diode is a in a unique mixture of fashion and technology. In this
LED in which the emissive electroluminescent layer manner, our shoes for instance, can twinkle when we
is a film of organic compound. This layer is situated move.
between two electrodes, at least one of them being
transparent. There are two main families of OLEDs: 8. Some Current Researches on LEDs
those based on small molecules and those employing As we have seen, LEDs have several advantages over
polymers; in this case, they are known as PLEDs, that traditional lighting systems, but, today, their price is
is, polymeric LEDs. Today, researchers are working relatively high. LEDs are expensive because the
to develop white OLED devices for use in solid-state manufacturing process used to fabricate the wafers
lighting applications [30]. from which LED chips are obtained is difficult. The
difficulties are coming from the employed materials,
usually gallium nitride for diode layers and sapphire
Let us note that we have also LED-backlit LCD
for substrates. To reduce the costs, some
displays. They are flat panel displays which use LED manufacturers have proposed using silicon as
backlighting arrays instead of cold cathode substrate, and silicon is the material routinely used to
fluorescent lamps (CCFLs), which are commonly fabricate the integrated circuits. This proposal is not
used in LCDs. LED-backlit LCD TVs use the same recent: silicon had been tried, but large mismatches
TFT LCD (thin film transistor liquid crystal display) between its crystal structure and that of GaN create
technologies as CCFL-backlit LCD TVs. Picture faults that reduce the product’s efficacy. New
quality is primarily based on TFT LCD technology, developments promise to overcome these drawbacks
independent of backlight type. While not LED [35].
displays, these televisions are called “LED TV” by
some manufacturers and suppliers [31]. As told previously, LED chips are obtained by
deposition of several layers of different materials
7. LED Lamps, Art and Fashion starting from a given substrate [36]. Multiple thin
As lighting systems, the LED lamps are used for art layers, grown by epitaxy and sandwiched between p-
exhibitions and museums. Let us see one remarkable and n-contacts, are usually composing the active
example: they are used for one of the masterpieces of region of chips. Normally, these active layers are
Italian Renaissance, the Sistine Chapel of Vatican InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs)
Apostolic Palaces in Rome. For the past 500 years, [37,38]. A quantum well is a potential well used to
people admired it with the light of sun entering the confine particles, which are originally free, allowing
windows of the Chapel. However, from 1980s, them to occupy several energy subbands. In such a
Vatican officials, being concerned about sun radiation manner, the indium-rich regions of quantum wells are
could damage the paints, screened the windows and successfully capturing electron-hole pairs that
used a system of halogen low-energy lamps to

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Light-Emitting Diodes in the Solid-State Lighting Systems

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Figure 1: LED development began with infrared and red devices made of gallium arsenide (GaAs). Advances in
materials science enabled to create devices with shorter wavelengths, emitting light in a variety of colors, using
different semiconductors. In the upper part of the image, we see the lattice of GaAs (courtesy Wikipedia) and the
energy band structure as a function of the wavenumber in the Brillouin Zone, as calculated by F. Herman and W.E.
Spicer, in their paper entitled “Spectral analysis of photoemission yields in GaAs and related crystals”, published in
the Physical Review of 1968.

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Light-Emitting Diodes in the Solid-State Lighting Systems

Figure 2: The frequency of the emitted light depends on the band-gap energy of p-n junction. This gap exists between
the bottom of the conduction band and the top of the valence band. In semiconductors, we can have direct or indirect
band gaps. A certain crystal momentum, and its corresponding k-vector in the Brillouin Zone, characterizes the
minimum energy state of the conduction band; another k-vector gives the maximum energy state of the valence band.
If these two k-vectors are the same, we have a direct gap: if different, there is an indirect gap. Therefore, the band-
gap is direct if an electron can recombine with a hole of the same momentum, emitting a photon. This photon has a
relatively large wavelength, and therefore a negligible wavenumber, when compared to the k-vectors of electrons.
Therefore, the conservation of total crystal momentum is easily fulfilled. When the gap is indirect, the probability of
a photon emission is very low and electron must transfer momentum to the phonons of the crystal lattice [20].

8
Light-Emitting Diodes in the Solid-State Lighting Systems

Figure 3: The fabricated LED chips are mounted in a package that consists of two electrical leads, a transparent
optical window for the escape of light and thermal paths for heat dissipation. Typical package for low-power device
is given in the figure on the left. In the upper part we see an image of a LED and in the lower part a schematic
representation of the diode, in the case of a GaN device. The active device is bonded or soldered to the bottom of a
cup-like depression, the reflector cup, with one of the lead wires, usually the cathode lead. A bond wire connects the
LED top contact to the other lead wire, usually the anode lead. This package is frequently referred to as the 5mm or
T1-3/4 package [26]: it is encapsulated in a transparent material having a hemispherical shape to have a normal angle
of incidence of the rays of light to the encapsulate-air interface. The standard 5mm LED package is not suited to have
a sufficient heat transfer to maintain the LED cool during operation. Therefore, a new package for high-power LED
had been developed: it is the flip-chip package that we can see in the image on the right, with its schematic view
[26,27]. Let us note that the active region is often made by multi quantum wells (the 3D model is a
Wikipedia/Tosaka|Tosa courtesy).