HIGHLY EFFICIENT LIGHT-EMITTING-DIODES WITH MICROCAVITIES

One-dimensional microcavities are optical resonators with coplanar ref lectors separated by a distance on the order of the optical wavelength . Such structures quantize the energy of photons propagating along the optical axis of the cavity and thereby strongly modify the spontaneou s emission properties of a photon-emitting medium inside a microcavity . This report concerns semiconductor light-emitting diodes with the ph oton-emitting active region of the light-emitting diodes placed inside a microcavity. These devices are shown to have strongly modified emis sion properties including experimental emission efficiencies that are higher by more than a factor of 5 and theoretical emission efficiencie s that are higher by more than a factor of 10 than the emission effici encies in conventional light-emitting diodes.