Red micro-size light-emitting diodes (μLEDs) less than 10 × 10 μm2 are crucial for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications. However, they remain very challenging since the common AlInGaP red μLEDs with such small size suffer from a dramatic reduction in the external quantum efficiency. In this work, we demonstrate ultra-small 5 × 5 μm2 607 nm amber μLEDs using InGaN materials, which show an EQE over 2% and an ultra-low reverse current of 10−9 A at −5 V. This demonstration suggests promising results of ultra-small InGaN μLEDs for AR and VR displays.

We present efficient red InGaN 60 × 60 μm2 micro-light-emitting diodes ( μLEDs) with an epitaxial tunnel junction (TJ) contact. The TJ was grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition using selective area growth. The red TJ μLEDs show a uniform electroluminescence. At a low current density of 1 A/cm2, the emission peak wavelength is 623 nm with a full-width half maximum of 47 nm. The peak external quantum efficiency (EQE) measured in an integrating sphere is as high as 4.5%. These results suggest a significant progress in exploring high efficiency InGaN red μLEDs using TJ technology.

We demonstrate a significant quantum efficiency enhancement of InGaN red micro-light-emitting diodes (μLEDs). The peak external quantum efficiency (EQE) of the packaged 80 × 80 μm2 InGaN red μLEDs was largely increased to 6.0% at 12 A/cm2, representing the significant process in exploring the efficiency of InGaN red μLEDs. The improvement of the EQE is attributed to the significant enhancement of the quantum efficiency, which is confirmed by the electron–hole wavefunction overlap in the InGaN quantum well from the band gap simulation and the photoluminescence intensity ratio at room temperature/low temperature. Ultrasmall 5 × 5 μm2 InGaN red μLEDs were also obtained, which show a high peak EQE of 4.5%. This work demonstrates a simple approach to achieving highly efficient InGaN red μLEDs, which are very promising candidates for ultrasmall red μLEDs required by AR/VR displays.

We demonstrate room-temperature stimulated emission at 568 nm from low dislocation density InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells. For a 1.4 mm long and a 50  μm wide ridge bar optically pumped by a high-power pulsed laser, we observed an emission peak at 568 nm with a narrow spectral width of less than 2 nm at room temperature. The measured pumping threshold is less than 1.5 MW/cm2, and the polarization ratio of the emission is over 90%. This demonstration paves the way for the future development of electrically injected InGaN semiconductor yellow laser diodes.