Solid state UV emitters have many advantages over conventional UV sources. The (Al,In,Ga)N material system is best suited to produce LEDs and laser diodes from 400 nm down to 210 nm—due to its large and tuneable direct band gap, n- and p-doping capability up to the largest bandgap material AlN and a growth and fabrication technology compatible with the current visible InGaN-based LED production. However AlGaN based UV-emitters still suffer from numerous challenges compared to their visible counterparts that become most obvious by consideration of their light output power, operation voltage and long term stability. Most of these challenges are related to the large bandgap of the materials. However, the development since the first realization of UV electroluminescence in the 1970s shows that an improvement in understanding and technology allows the performance of UV emitters to be pushed far beyond the current state. One example is the very recent realization of edge emitting laser diodes emitting in the UVC at 271.8 nm and in the UVB spectral range at 298 nm. This roadmap summarizes the current state of the art for the most important aspects of UV emitters, their challenges and provides an outlook for future developments.

We increased the light-extraction efficiency (LEE) of AlGaN-based deep-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (DUV LEDs) by introducing a highly reflective photonic crystal (HR-PhC) into the surface of the p-AlGaN contact layer, thereby achieving a high external quantum efficiency (EQE). A low-damage HR-PhC with a lattice period of approximately 250 nm was fabricated using nanoimprinting and dry etching. A reflective Ni/Mg p-type electrode was deposited on the HR-PhC layer using a tilted-evaporation method. The EQE of a conventional DUV LED with emission around 283 nm was increased from 4.8 to 10% by introducing the HR-PhC and the reflective Ni/Mg electrode. A simple estimation of the effective reflectance of the HR-PhC p-AlGaN contact layer with the Ni/Mg electrode indicated a value exceeding 90%.

AlGaN-based ultraviolet-B (UVB) LEDs at 310 nm emissions are expected to offer safe and smart size UVB-light sources compared to the toxic mercury UV-lamp. Previously, the issue of nonlinearity in the emitted light output power (L) as well as in the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 310 nm band UVB LEDs were observed. First, the influence of both the number of n-AlGaN buffer layers (BLs) and the type of p-electrodes on the recovery of linear behavior in the L and EQE were investigated. It was found that the nonlinearity in the L and EQE of UVB LED is independent of the number of BLs as well as type of p-electrodes. Therefore, finally the dependence of nonlinearity in the L and EQE on the thickness of quantum-well-barrier (T QWB) of multi-quantum-wells (MQWs) were also considered. Subsequently, the issue of nonlinear behavior in the L and EQE was resolved by the thickness reduction of T QWB from 25 to 10 nm in the MQWs. Similarly, a reasonable value of improvement in both L and EQE, respectively, up to 12 mW and 2.2% of 310nm band UVB LED were realized.

Aluminium gallium nitride (AlGaN)‐based ultraviolet‐B light‐emitting diodes (UVB LEDs) are expected to offer smart size, wider choice of UVB light emission in the wavelengths range of 280 nm > λ > 320 nm, and low cost as well as low power consumption compared with other UV light sources including toxic mercury UV‐lamps. The hole‐tunneling from p‐AlGaN side of UVB LED into the multi‐quantum‐wells (MQWs) is strongly dependent on the thickness (TFB) and Al‐contents of undoped (ud)‐AlGaN final barrier (FB). Herein, the photoluminescence (PL) efficiency from MQWs of the UVB LED devices is investigated and compared with the electroluminescence (EL) spectra as a function of TFB. Subsequently, the dependence of PL efficiency, external quantum efficiency (EQE), and light output power on the TFB of UVB LEDs is attempted, using the same growth condition for all samples except variation in TFB. When TFB is set to 6–7 nm, improvements in the EQE and light output power, respectively, from 4.3% and 7 mW to the high values of 5.6% and 17 mW in emission band of 295–300 nm under continuous‐wave (cw) at room temperature (RT) are achieved.

Mg-doped p-type semiconducting aluminium-gallium-nitride hole source layer (p-AlGaN HSL) materials are quite promising as a source of hole ‘p’ carriers for the ultraviolet-B (UVB) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs). However, the p-AlGaN HSL has a central issue of low hole injection due to poor activation of Mg atoms, and the presence of unwanted impurity contamination and the existence of a localized coherent state. Therefore, first the impact of the Mg level on the crystallinity, Al composition and relaxation conditions in the p-AlGaN HSL were studied. An increasing trend in the lattice-relaxation ratios with increasing Mg concentrations in the p-AlGaN HSL were observed. Ultimately, a 40%–60% relaxed and 1.4 μm thick p-AlGaN HSL structure with total threading dislocation densities (total-TDDs) of approximately ∼8–9 × 108 cm−2 was achieved, which almost matches our previous design of a 4 μm thick and 50% relaxed n-AlGaN electron source layer (ESL) with total-TDDs of approximately ∼7–8 × 108 cm−2. Subsequently, structurally a symmetric p–n junction for UVB emitters was accomplished. Finally, the influence of excimer laser annealing (ELA) on the activation of Mg concentration and on suppression of unwanted impurities as well as on the annihilation of the localized energy state in the p-AlGaN HSL were thoroughly investigated. ELA treatment suggested a reduced Ga–N bonding ratio and increased Ga–O, as well as Ga–Ga bonding ratios in the p-AlGaN HSL. After ELA treatment the localized coherent state was suppressed and, ultimately, the photoluminescence emission efficiency as well as conductivity were drastically improved in the p-AlGaN HSL. By using lightly polarized p-AlGaN HSL assisted by ELA treatment, quite low resistivity in p-type AlGaN HSL at room temperature (hole concentration is ∼2.6 × 1016 cm−3, the hole mobility is ∼9.6 cm2 V1 s−1 and the resistivity is ∼24.39 Ω. cm) were reported. ELA treatment has great potential for localized activation of p-AlGaN HSL as well as n- and p-electrodes on n-AlGaN and p-AlGaN contact layers during the flip-chip (FC) process in low operating UVB emitters, including UVB lasers.

We utilized the finite-difference time-domain method (FDTD) to investigate the reflectance of an air void photonic crystal (PhC) on the p-electrode of an AlGaN-based deep ultraviolet (DUV) light-emitting diode (LED). Firstly, a transparent p-AlGaN layer with cylindrical air voids on a Ni(1nm)/Al(140nm) metal electrode was optimized to maximize the reflectance at normal incidence. It was shown that by having the optimum AlGaN PhC on the metal electrode, the reflectance as a function of the angle of incidence was advantageously redistributed to increase LEE. The calculated angle-dependent reflectances were converted to average reflectance considering the power distribution of dipole sources in the TE and TM modes. The average reflectances of a reference structure and the PhC structure for the TM mode at wavelengths around 283 nm were 77.1 and 85.2%, respectively. Thus, an incremental increase of 8% in average reflectance for the TM mode was obtained by adopting the optimized PhC. Secondly, we investigated a PhC with air voids in two different layers, a p-GaN layer and a p-AlGaN layer on the Ni/Al. The calculated average reflectances at 283 nm were 38% and 42% for the TE and TM modes, respectively, when the thickness of the p-GaN layer was 70 nm. The average reflectances for the TE and TM modes with a uniform 70nm thick p-GaN layer without a PhC were 4.2 and 3.6%, respectively. This clearly shows that the optimized PhC can reduce light absorption in both the p-GaN layer and the metal electrode.

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