Efficient stress-relaxation in InGaN/GaN light-emitting diodes using carbon nanotubesElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/C5NR04239A

• Main Authors: Park, Ah Hyun, Seo, Tae Hoon, Chandramohan, S, Lee, Gun Hee, Min, Kyung Hyun, Lee, Seula, Kim, Myung Jong, Hwang, Yong Gyoo, Suh, Eun-Kyung
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2040-3364; 2040-3372
• DOI: 10.1039/c5nr04239a

A facile method to facilitate epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) of gallium nitride (GaN) was developed by using single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). High-quality GaN was achieved on sapphire by simply coating the SWCNTs as an intermediate layer for stress and defect mitigation. SWCNTs maintained their integrity at high reaction temperature and led to suppression of edge dislocations and biaxial stress relaxation by up to 0.32 GPa in a GaN template layer. InGaN/GaN multi-quantum-well light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on this high-quality GaN template offered enhanced internal quantum efficiency and light output power with reduced efficiency droop. The method developed here has high potential to replace current ELO methods such as patterned sapphire substrates or buffer layers like SiO 2 and SiN x . A facile method for the epitaxial lateral overgrowth of high-quality gallium nitride was developed by using single-walled carbon nanotubes.