Fabrication and performance of efficient blue light emitting III-nitride photonic crystals

We have fabricated and characterized a light emitting photonic crystal slab in the blue near 460 nm, based on InGaN quantum well active material. A multilayer nanopattern transfer technique was developed to fabricate these optical structures. The dependence of the photoluminescence enhancement on specific pattern dimension, coupled with distinct polarization characteristics of emission, was found to be in good agreement with theoretical simulations, thereby supporting the existence of photonic crystal band gap. The results suggest that practical fabrication of photonic crystal slabtype light emitting diodes for enhanced external quantum efficiency in the blue and ultraviolet is feasible. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.