Periodic Reporting for period 2 - InGaNious (Next-Generation Indium Gallium Nitride Micro LEDs)
Reporting period: 2024-02-01 to 2025-06-30
In the InGaNious project, we are developing a unique InGaN epitaxial platform for the microLED market, which will revolutionize display resolution and brightness. InGaNious has the potential to unlock next-generation, ultra-high resolution and high-efficiency displays for the global opto-electronics industry, and enable many new display applications. The project aims to bring the InGaN platelet technology to 6” Si wafers and demonstrate ultra-small, sub-1-µm high efficiency microLEDs for red emission.
Conventional GaN/InGaN planar technologies are struggling to keep efficiency high as the pixel size is reduced below 10µm. This is a problem, in particular for display application where a high density is needed, i.e VR, AR, HUD, and even for smart watches.
The InGaNious technology solves several of the issues that the conventional technologies are struggling with by a unique defect filtering approach that also minimizes material stress and enables easier tuning of emission wavelength. In addition, the technology works from the bottom-up, avoiding issues with plasma processes that cause damage to the material. Further, the technology also allows for the integration of red, green, and blue emitting microLEDs on the same epitaxial wafer. This would drastically simplify all display manufacturing, even on large TV panel sizes, which do not necessarily need the ultra-high resolution. Thus, our technology can address not only the AR/VR emerging markets but also the extremely large TV and smart phone markets, which means very large production volumes.
The project objectives were the demonstration of high quality deep red InGaN platelet sub-1µm microLEDs, show initial scaling to 150mm wafer size (Si) and engage with industrial partners in order to secure a joint development program.
As society today depends on modern technology, displays are found everywhere. Most of us carry at least one display with us at all time and use many more on a daily basis.
With the emergence of a competitive microLED technology, enabled by InGaNious, many new opportunities in the VR, AR, and HUD segments will arise that have the potential to revolutionize a range of market segments, including transport, medicine, and education. With state-of-the-art efficiency there is ample room for reduction in energy consumption and improved and simplified integration flow, a higher yield and lower cost production process of displays. In addition, a technology like InGaNious established in Europe aims to significantly assist in bringing the LED market and hence thousands of jobs back to Europe.
Conventional GaN/InGaN planar technologies are struggling to keep efficiency high as the pixel size is reduced below 10µm. This is a problem, in particular for display application where a high density is needed, i.e VR, AR, HUD, and even for smart watches.
The InGaNious technology solves several of the issues that the conventional technologies are struggling with by a unique defect filtering approach that also minimizes material stress and enables easier tuning of emission wavelength. In addition, the technology works from the bottom-up, avoiding issues with plasma processes that cause damage to the material. Further, the technology also allows for the integration of red, green, and blue emitting microLEDs on the same epitaxial wafer. This would drastically simplify all display manufacturing, even on large TV panel sizes, which do not necessarily need the ultra-high resolution. Thus, our technology can address not only the AR/VR emerging markets but also the extremely large TV and smart phone markets, which means very large production volumes.
The project objectives were the demonstration of high quality deep red InGaN platelet sub-1µm microLEDs, show initial scaling to 150mm wafer size (Si) and engage with industrial partners in order to secure a joint development program.
As society today depends on modern technology, displays are found everywhere. Most of us carry at least one display with us at all time and use many more on a daily basis.
With the emergence of a competitive microLED technology, enabled by InGaNious, many new opportunities in the VR, AR, and HUD segments will arise that have the potential to revolutionize a range of market segments, including transport, medicine, and education. With state-of-the-art efficiency there is ample room for reduction in energy consumption and improved and simplified integration flow, a higher yield and lower cost production process of displays. In addition, a technology like InGaNious established in Europe aims to significantly assist in bringing the LED market and hence thousands of jobs back to Europe.
The project has focussed on developing deep red emitting InGaN microLEDs for display applications. The technical work has been split into growth template production both on smaller wafers and 150mm Si wafers, optimization of the epitaxial structure, as well as fabrication and characterization of prototype devices. During the project we have been able to demonstrate blue, green, and red emission using the same platelet technology and material system (InGaN), although the focus has been on deep red microLEDs as this is by far the most difficult to achieve in conventional GaN based technologies due to dislocation defects, excessive strain from lattice mismatch and plasma processing. At the end of the project, we successfully demonstrated 0,8µm red microLEDs emitting at 630nm (peak) even at current densities of 100A/cm2. This is highly interesting for ultra-high brightness displays but also for optical communication applications.
The achieved results of the InGaNious project have been presented at many conferences and we engaged with many industrial players, leading to on-going collaboration discussions as well as a signed joint development agreement with a large display manufacturer.
The achieved results of the InGaNious project have been presented at many conferences and we engaged with many industrial players, leading to on-going collaboration discussions as well as a signed joint development agreement with a large display manufacturer.
During the InGaNious project our prototype microLED devices has produced several KPIs going beyond state-of-the-art. We have successfully demonstrated sub-1µm devices emitting at 635nm showing an IQE of up to 60%, which is a factor of 6 higher than conventional technologies built on GaN. We have further demonstrated that we can maintain dominant wavelengths of 630nm up to drive currents of 100A/cm2, which enables ultra-high brightness displays.
Efficiency droop also seems very low in our devices compared to competition, which is promising for maintaining high efficiency at high drive currents. Finally, we have shown that all three primary colors can be produced using the same material system, and we have several paths that can enable monolithic RGB wafers, which would drastically lower wafer cost, and drastically simplify panel manufacturing thereby further lowering display cost and enabling microLED technology to become cost competitive with OLED technology.
These results will help enable much brighter, ultra high resolution displays, that could revolutionize not only AR glass applications but also the use of transparent screens for information display in critical environments such as automotives.
Efficiency droop also seems very low in our devices compared to competition, which is promising for maintaining high efficiency at high drive currents. Finally, we have shown that all three primary colors can be produced using the same material system, and we have several paths that can enable monolithic RGB wafers, which would drastically lower wafer cost, and drastically simplify panel manufacturing thereby further lowering display cost and enabling microLED technology to become cost competitive with OLED technology.
These results will help enable much brighter, ultra high resolution displays, that could revolutionize not only AR glass applications but also the use of transparent screens for information display in critical environments such as automotives.