Fourier modal method for inverse design of metasurface-enhanced micro-LEDs

Area of Science:

• Optoelectronics
• Computational Physics
• Nanophotonics

Background:

• Accurate simulation of micro-scale light-emitting diodes (µLEDs) is crucial for device optimization.
• Traditional methods like finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) are computationally intensive and slow.
• Modeling complex µLED structures presents significant challenges for existing simulation techniques.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel simulation capability for µLEDs that drastically improves computational speed.
• To demonstrate the suitability of the Fourier modal method (FMM) for modeling numerous incoherent sources in µLEDs.
• To enable efficient inverse design and optimization of µLED performance.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Fourier modal method (FMM) with extensions for rapid convergence.
• Developed a simulation capability for micro-scale light-emitting diodes (µLEDs).
• Applied the method to model thousands of incoherent sources within µLED structures.

Main Results:

• Achieved simulation speeds over 10⁷ times faster than CPU-based FDTD methods.
• Demonstrated comparable accuracy to traditional FDTD simulations.
• Successfully designed a metasurface-enhanced µLED with doubled light extraction efficiency.

Conclusions:

• The developed FMM-based simulation is highly efficient and accurate for µLEDs.
• This computational tool makes the inverse design of µLEDs practical.
• Metasurface integration offers a viable route to significantly enhance µLED light extraction.