Influence of the thickness of p-GaN ohmic contact layer on the performance of AlGaN-based deep-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes

276 nm AlGaN-based deep-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (DUV-LEDs) with varying p-GaN thicknesses were investigated. The simulation results demonstrate that DUV-LEDs with an ultra-thin 4 nm p-GaN layer exhibit a 96.9% increase in full-angle total radiant intensity compared to those with a 350 nm p-GaN layer. Meanwhile, the total radiant intensity of the DUV-LEDs with 4 nm p-GaN were all elevated during the degree of polarization (DOP) transition from 1 to -1. The experimental results demonstrate that the maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) and wall-plug efficiency (WPE) values of 5.3% and 4.0%, respectively, at 4 A/cm2 for the DUVLEDs with a 4 nm p-GaN layer. These figures represent remarkable improvements of 60.6% and 42.8% when compared to DUV-LEDs featuring a 350 nm p-GaN layer. Nevertheless, it's worth noting that the adoption of an ultra-thin p-GaN ohmic contact layer introduced some surface irregularities, potentially affecting the ohmic contact of the p-type layer and resulting in a slight voltage increase, thus tempering the WPE improvement. The light extraction efficiency (LEE) values of 10.0%, 7.4%, 6.7% and 6.3% were extracted for the four samples after fitting the experimental EQE curves by the ABC model.