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High Efficiency Bulk Crystalline Silicon Light Emitting Diodes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2011

Jianhua Zhao,
Aihua Wang,
Thorsten Trupke and
Martin A. Green
Jianhua Zhao
Affiliation:
Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
Aihua Wang
Affiliation:
Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
Thorsten Trupke
Affiliation:
Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
Martin A. Green
Affiliation:
Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia
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Abstract

A high power conversion efficiency above 1% from a bulk crystalline silicon (c-Si) light-emitting diode (LED) has been demonstrated at near room temperature. These devices are based on normally weak one- and two-phonon assisted sub-bandgap light emission processes. Their improved performance results from device designs that take advantage of enhanced light absorption by a light trapping scheme which was developed for high efficiency silicon solar cells, and from reducing scope for parasitic non-radiative recombination within the diode. Each feature individually is shown to improve efficiency by a factor of ten, accounting for an improvement by factor of one hundred compared to baseline devices.

Also demonstrated is a greatly improved band-edge light emission and detection using bulk c-Si diodes. A bulk c-Si LED is combined with a similar diode used as a detector that collects the light emitted with a high quantum collection efficiency of 33%, to produce a silicon to silicon optically coupled system that demonstrates 0.18% coupling quantum efficiency. The crystalline silicon LED demonstrates similarly high performance at very low power levels, where it has even higher power efficiency than a high efficiency GaAlAs LED.

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