An opto-thermal study of high brightness 280 nm emission AlGaN micropixel light-emitting diode arrays

Abstract We present a study of the light output power and the thermal impedance of 281 nm emission AlGaN based micropixel LEDs. A modular interconnected micropixel array design is presented which enables dense packing with area and power scalability. We study 5–15 μ m diameter stand-alone devices and parallel-connected micropixel arrays with 5 μ m interpixel gaps. A standalone 5 μ m pixel emits 291 W cm −2 at 10.2 kA cm −2 DC-drive. A power as high as 23 mW (361 W cm −2 ) was measured at a pulsed-pump current of 800 mA (∼15 kA cm −2 ) for an interconnected array. These are the smallest and brightest DUV LEDs to date.