Highly reflective contacts for light emitting semiconductor devices

• US 5,917,202 A
• Filed: 12/21/1995
• Issued: 06/29/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/1995
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Lumileds LLC (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Company (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Haitz, Roland H., Kish, Fred A. Jr.
• Primary Examiner(s): GUAY, JOHN FRANCIS
• Application Number:
  US08/576,251
• Time in Patent Office: 1,286 Days
• Field of Search: 257/98-99, 438/604, 438/605, 438/662, 438/666, 438/26
• US Class Current: 257/98
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 33/22 Roughened surfaces, e.g. at the interface between epitaxial layers
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 33/387 with a plurality of electrode regions in direct contact with the semiconductor body and being electrically interconnected by another electrode layer
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 33/405 Reflective materials

Abstract

Light emitting diodes with highly reflective contacts and methods for fabricating them are described. In a first preferred embodiment of the present invention, LEDs with reflective contacts are formed using a laser to create small alloyed dots in a highly reflective metal evaporated on the top and bottom surface of the LED chip. Using this technique, most of the bottom surface remains highly reflective, and only those portions of the bottom surface where the laser struck become absorbing. Typically, only 1% of the bottom surface is formed into contacts, leaving 99% of the bottom surface to serve as a reflecting surface. The 1% of the surface, however, provides an adequate low resistance ohmic contact. LEDs fabricated with this technique allow photons to bounce off the rear surface more than 20 times before there is a 50% chance of absorption. In a second embodiment of the present invention, an application of compound semiconductor wafer bonding techniques permits the fabrication of LEDs with a plurality of these small, micro-alloyed contacts without the use of a laser.

Claims

1. A reflective contact for a light emitting semiconductor device, the light emitting semiconductor device having a top and bottom surface, the reflective contact comprising:

a reflective metal layer adjacent and abutting a predetermined portion of at least one of the top and bottom surface of the light emitting semiconductor device; and

a plurality of alloyed metal-semiconductor zones, each zone having a perimeter that is adjacent and abuts the reflective metal layer, formed from the reflective metal layer and the at least one of the top and bottom surfaces of the light emitting semiconductor device, the alloyed metal-semiconductor zones comprising by area no more than 10% of the total area of the reflective metal layer and the alloyed metal-semiconductor zones combined, the alloyed metal-semiconductor zones forming an ohmic, low resistance contact with the at least one of the the top and bottom surfaces of the light emitting semiconductor device.

2. The reflective contact of claim 1 wherein each of the alloyed metal-semiconductor zones has a shape, that shape being selected from a group of shapes comprising at least circles, ellipses, squares, and annular rings.

3. The reflective contact of the claim 1 wherein the alloyed metal-semiconductor zones are individually between π

/4 to 625π

μ

m² in area and more than 2.8 μ

m apart.

4. The reflective contact of claim 1 wherein the alloyed metal-semiconductor zones are formed by means of a laser beam.

5. The reflective contact of claim 4 wherein the reflective metal layer further comprises a plurality of layers, the plurality of layers comprising:

a reflective metal layer; and

a dopant metal layer.

6. The reflective contact of claim 4 wherein the area weighted reflectivity of the metal layer and alloyed metal-semiconductor zones is greater than 80%.