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The origin of plasma‐induced damage on a p‐type wide‐bandgap layer during the sputtering of tin‐doped indium oxide (ITO) contact layers by using radiofrequency‐superimposed direct current (DC) sputtering and its effects on the forward voltage and light output power (LOP) of light‐emitting diodes (LEDs) with sputtered ITO transparent conductive electrodes (TCE) is systematically studied. Changing the DC power voltage from negative to positive bias reduces the forward voltages and enhances the LOP of the LEDs. The positive DC power drastically decreases the electron flux in the plasma obtained by plasma diagnostics using a cutoff probe and a Langmuir probe, suggesting that the repulsion of plasma electrons from the p‐GaN surface can reduce plasma‐induced damage to the p‐GaN. Furthermore, electron‐beam irradiation on p‐GaN prior to ITO deposition significantly increases the forward voltages, showing that the plasma electrons play an important role in plasma‐induced damage to the p‐GaN. The plasma electrons can increase the effective barrier height at the ITO/deep‐level defect (DLD) band of p‐GaN by compensating DLDs, resulting in the deterioration of the forward voltage and LOP. Finally, the plasma damage‐free sputtered‐ITO TCE enhances the LOP of the LEDs by 20% with a low forward voltage of 2.9 V at 20 mA compared to LEDs with conventional e‐beam‐evaporated ITO TCE.

The effect of tin-oxide (SnO) nanoparticles, which are obtained by indium-tin-oxide (ITO) treatment, on the p-GaN surface of GaN-based flip-chip blue micro-light-emitting diode ( μ -LED) arrays is investigated. A thin Ag layer is deposited on the ITO-treated p-GaN surface by sputtering. SnO nanoparticles originate from inhomogeneous Schottky barrier heights (SBHs) at Ag/p-GaN contact. Therefore, effective SBH is reduced, which causes carrier transport into the μ -LED to enhance. 10 nm thick ITO-treated μ -LEDs show better optoelectronic characteristics among fabricated μ -LEDs owing to improved ohmic contact and highly reflective p-type reflectors. Basically, SnO nanoparticles help to make good ohmic contact, which results in improved carrier transport into μ -LEDs and thus results in increased optoelectronic performances.

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