Reflectance bandwidth and efficiency improvement of light-emitting diodes with double-distributed Bragg reflector

Distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR) with metal film on the bottom have been demonstrated to further improve the light output power of GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Periods of TiO₂/SiO₂ stacks, thickness of metal film, and material of metallic reflector were designed and optimized in simulation software. The maximal bandwidth of double-DBR stacks have reached up to 272 nm, which was 102 nm higher than a single-DBR stack. The average reflectance of LEDs with wavelength from 380 nm to 780 nm in double-DBR stacks is 95.09% at normal incident, which was much higher than that of a single-DBR stack whose average reflectance was 91.38%. Meanwhile, maximal average reflectance of LEDs for double-DBR stacks with an incident angle from 0 to 90° was 97.41%, which was 3.2% higher than that of a single-DBR stack with maximal average reflectance of 94.21%. The light output power of an LED with double-DBR stacks is 3% higher than that of an LED with a single-DBR stack, which was attributed to high reflectance of double-DBR stacks.