The Effect of the Original Thickness of Ag in the Graphene–Ag Nanodots Transparent Conductive Layer on the Electrical and Optical Properties of GaN-Based UV-LEDs

Abstract

We investigate the electrical and optical properties of graphene–Ag nanodot compounds as transparent conductive layers (TCLs) for gallium nitride (GaN)-based ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs) with different Ag thicknesses. As the thickness of Ag increases from 2 to 5 nm on the 365-nm UV-LEDs, the transmittance decreases from 82.5% to 65.2% and ohmic contact resistance decreases from 0.2 to ${1.3}{\times} {10}^{-5} \Omega \text {cm}^{2}$ . At a wavelength of about 320 nm, the TCLs exhibit high transparency, which is also confirmed by the simulation data of the finite-difference time-domain solution. The simulation and experimental results suggest that Ag with a thickness of 5 nm can potentially obtain both low ohmic contact resistance and high transmittance at the wavelength of about 320 nm, which is important for medical applications. We also study the nanodot migration and coalescence mechanism of 2- and 5-nm Ag samples by scanning electron microscopy, as well as the influence of the existence of graphene. The 5-nm Ag sample has smaller and denser Ag nanodots and thus exhibits better electrical properties. In addition, the Ag nanodots after the second annealing procedure with graphene covering are larger than those without graphene covering.