R. Chao, Stephen Gee, Alejandro Quevedo, Wesley K. Mills, Tanay Tak, Hunter S. Larson, Kent N. Nitta, Shuji Nakamura, Jon A. Schuller, Steven P. DenBaars
Enhancing the efficiency and beam directivity of GaN micron-scale light-emitting diodes (µLEDs) is critical for visible-light communication, which has emerged as a promising platform for high-bandwidth optical links in data-center environments. We demonstrate a µLED design where the emitting mesa is laterally enclosed by a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR). This design achieves ∼20% higher optical output through air-side emission and ∼130% higher optical output through substrate-side emission with ∼30% reduced divergence compared to reference devices enclosed by a TiO 2 film. Our results present a manufacturable route to efficient, directional µLEDs with applications in optical interconnects and advanced display technologies.