Unidirectional luminescence from ingan/gan quantum-well metasurfaces

ABSTRACT III–nitride light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are the backbone of ubiquitous lighting and display applications. Imparting directional emission is an essential requirement for many LED

implementations. Although optical packaging1, nanopatterning2,3 and surface roughening4 techniques can enhance LED extraction, directing the emitted light requires bulky optical components.

Optical metasurfaces provide precise control over transmitted and reflected waveforms, suggesting a new route for directing light emission. However, it is difficult to adapt metasurface

concepts for incoherent light emission, due to the lack of a phase-locking incident wave. Here, we demonstrate a metasurface-based design of InGaN/GaN quantum-well structures that generate

narrow, unidirectional transmission and emission lobes at arbitrary engineered angles. We further demonstrate 7-fold and 100-fold enhancements of total and air-coupled external quantum

efficiencies, respectively. The results present a new strategy for exploiting metasurface functionality in light-emitting devices. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a

preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through your institution Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value

online-access subscription $29.99 / 30 days cancel any time Learn more Subscribe to this journal Receive 12 print issues and online access $209.00 per year only $17.42 per issue Learn more

Buy this article * Purchase on SpringerLink * Instant access to full article PDF Buy now Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout ADDITIONAL ACCESS OPTIONS:

* Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS ENHANCED AND DIRECTIONAL ELECTROLUMINESCENCE FROM

MICROLEDS USING METALLIC OR DIELECTRIC METASURFACES Article Open access 06 April 2025 HIGHLY EFFICIENT BLUE INGAN NANOSCALE LIGHT-EMITTING DIODES Article 03 August 2022

SINGLE-STEP-FABRICATED DISORDERED METASURFACES FOR ENHANCED LIGHT EXTRACTION FROM LEDS Article Open access 06 September 2021 DATA AVAILABILITY The data that support the plots within this

paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. CODE AVAILABILITY The code that supports the plots within this paper and other

findings of this study is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. REFERENCES * Steigerwald, D. A. et al. Illumination with solid state lighting technology. _IEEE J.

Sel. Top. Quantum Electron._ 8, 310–320 (2002). ADS  Google Scholar  * Keller, S. et al. Optical and structural properties of GaN nanopillar and nanostripe arrays with embedded InGaN∕GaN

multi-quantum wells. _J. Appl. Phys._ 100, 054314 (2006). ADS  Google Scholar  * Wierer, J. J., David, A. & Megens, M. M. III–nitride photonic-crystal light-emitting diodes with high

extraction efficiency. _Nat. Photon._ 3, 163–169 (2009). ADS  Google Scholar  * Fujii, T. et al. Increase in the extraction efficiency of GaN-based light-emitting diodes via surface

roughening. _Appl. Phys. Lett._ 84, 855–857 (2004). ADS  Google Scholar  * Craford, M. G. LEDs for solid state lighting and other emerging applications: status, trends, and challenges.

_Proc. SPIE_ 5941, 594101 (2005). Google Scholar  * Liu, Z., Chong, W. C., Wong, K. M. & Lau, K. M. GaN-based LED micro-displays for wearable applications. _Microelectron. Eng._ 148,

98–103 (2015). Google Scholar  * Huang, J.-J., Kuo, H.-C. & Shen, S.-C. _Nitride Semiconductor Light-emitting Diodes (LEDs): Materials, Technologies, and Applications_ (Woodhead

Publishing, 2017). * Ha, S. T. et al. Directional lasing in resonant semiconductor nanoantenna arrays. _Nat. Nanotechnol._ 13, 1042–1047 (2018). ADS  Google Scholar  * Hoang, T. B.,

Akselrod, G. M., Yang, A., Odom, T. W. & Mikkelsen, M. H. Millimeter-scale spatial coherence from a plasmon laser. _Nano Lett._ 17, 6690–6695 (2017). ADS  Google Scholar  * Schuller, J.

A., Taubner, T. & Brongersma, M. L. Optical antenna thermal emitters. _Nat. Photon._ 3, 658–661 (2009). ADS  Google Scholar  * Sakr, E., Dhaka, S. & Bermel, P. Asymmetric

angular-selective thermal emission. _Proc. SPIE_ 9743, 97431D (2016). ADS  Google Scholar  * Inampudi, S., Cheng, J., Salary, M. M. & Mosallaei, H. Unidirectional thermal radiation from

a SiC metasurface. _J. Opt. Soc. Am. B_ 35, 39–46 (2018). ADS  Google Scholar  * Curto, A. G. et al. Unidirectional emission of a quantum dot coupled to a nanoantenna. _Science_ 329, 930–933

(2010). ADS  Google Scholar  * Kosako, T., Kadoya, Y. & Hofmann, H. F. Directional control of light by a nano-optical Yagi–Uda antenna. _Nat. Photon._ 4, 312–315 (2010). Google Scholar

  * Ho, J. et al. Highly directive hybrid metal–dielectric Yagi-Uda nanoantennas. _ACS Nano_ 12, 8616–8624 (2018). Google Scholar  * Muhlschlegel, P. Resonant optical antennas. _Science_

308, 1607–1609 (2005). ADS  Google Scholar  * Langguth, L., Schokker, A. H., Guo, K. & Koenderink, A. F. Plasmonic phase-gradient metasurface for spontaneous emission control. _Phys.

Rev. B_ 92, 205401 (2015). ADS  Google Scholar  * Hancu, I. M., Curto, A. G., Castro-López, M., Kuttge, M. & van Hulst, N. F. Multipolar interference for directed light emission. _Nano

Lett._ 14, 166–171 (2013). ADS  Google Scholar  * Vaskin, A., Kolkowski, R., Koenderink, A. F. & Staude, I. Light-emitting metasurfaces. _Nanophotonics_ 8, 1151–1198 (2019). Google

Scholar  * Arbabi, E., Arbabi, A., Kamali, S. M., Horie, Y. & Faraon, A. Controlling the sign of chromatic dispersion in diffractive optics with dielectric metasurfaces. _Optica_ 4, 625

(2017). ADS  Google Scholar  * Arbabi, A., Horie, Y., Bagheri, M. & Faraon, A. Dielectric metasurfaces for complete control of phase and polarization with subwavelength spatial

resolution and high transmission. _Nat. Nanotechnol._ 10, 937–943 (2015). ADS  Google Scholar  * Iyer, P. P., Pendharkar, M. & Schuller, J. A. Electrically reconfigurable metasurfaces

using heterojunction resonators. _Adv. Opt. Mater._ 4, 1582–1588 (2016). Google Scholar  * Chalabi, H., Alù, A. & Brongersma, M. L. Focused thermal emission from a nanostructured SiC

surface. _Phys. Rev. B_ 94, 094307 (2016). ADS  Google Scholar  * Liu, S. et al. Light-emitting metasurfaces: simultaneous control of spontaneous emission and far-field radiation. _Nano

Lett._ 18, 6906–6914 (2018). ADS  Google Scholar  * Vaskin, A. et al. Manipulation of magnetic dipole emission from Eu3+ with Mie-resonant dielectric metasurfaces. _Nano Lett._ 19, 1015–1022

(2019). ADS  Google Scholar  * Lozano, G., Grzela, G., Verschuuren, M. A., Ramezani, M. & Rivas, J. G. Tailor-made directional emission in nanoimprinted plasmonic-based light-emitting

devices. _Nanoscale_ 6, 9223–9229 (2014). ADS  Google Scholar  * Li, J., Verellen, N. & Van Dorpe, P. Enhancing magnetic dipole emission by a nano-doughnut-shaped silicon disk. _ACS

Photon._ 4, 1893–1898 (2017). Google Scholar  * Staude, I. et al. Shaping photoluminescence spectra with magnetoelectric resonances in all-dielectric nanoparticles. _ACS Photon._ 2, 172–177

(2015). Google Scholar  * Vaskin, A. et al. Directional and spectral shaping of light emission with Mie-resonant silicon nanoantenna arrays. _ACS Photon._ 5, 1359–1364 (2018). Google Scholar

  * Cotrufo, M., Osorio, C. I. & Koenderink, A. F. Spin-dependent emission from arrays of planar chiral nanoantennas due to lattice and localized plasmon resonances. _ACS Nano_ 10,

3389–3397 (2016). Google Scholar  * Guo, K., Du, M., Osorio, C. I. & Koenderink, A. F. Broadband light scattering and photoluminescence enhancement from plasmonic Vogel’s golden spirals.

_Laser Photon. Rev._ 11, 1600235 (2017). ADS  Google Scholar  * Iyer, P. P., Butakov, N. A. & Schuller, J. A. Reconfigurable semiconductor phased-array metasurfaces. _ACS Photon._ 2,

1077–1084 (2015). Google Scholar  * Das, T., Iyer, P. P., DeCrescent, R. A. & Schuller, J. A. Beam engineering for selective and enhanced coupling to multipolar resonances. _Phys. Rev.

B_ 92, 241110 (2015). ADS  Google Scholar  * Yu, N. et al. Light propagation with phase discontinuities: generalized laws of reflection and refraction. _Science_ 334, 333–337 (2011). ADS 

Google Scholar  * Taminiau, T. H., Karaveli, S., van Hulst, N. F. & Zia, R. Quantifying the magnetic nature of light emission. _Nat. Commun._ 3, 979 (2012). ADS  Google Scholar  *

Schuller, J. A. et al. Orientation of luminescent excitons in layered nanomaterials. _Nat. Nanotechnol._ 8, 271–276 (2013). ADS  Google Scholar  * Kurvits, J. A., Jiang, M. & Zia, R.

Comparative analysis of imaging configurations and objectives for Fourier microscopy. _J. Opt. Soc. Am. A_ 32, 2082–2092 (2015). ADS  Google Scholar  * McGroddy, K. et al. Directional

emission control and increased light extraction in GaN photonic crystal light emitting diodes. _Appl. Phys. Lett._ 93, 103502 (2008). ADS  Google Scholar  * Sell, D., Yang, J., Doshay, S.,

Yang, R. & Fan, J. A. Large-angle, multifunctional metagratings based on freeform multimode geometries. _Nano Lett._ 17, 3752–3757 (2017). ADS  Google Scholar  * Sandfuchs, O., Brunner,

R., Pätz, D., Sinzinger, S. & Ruoff, J. Rigorous analysis of shadowing effects in blazed transmission gratings. _Opt. Lett._ 31, 3638–3640 (2006). ADS  Google Scholar  * Matioli, E. et

al. High-brightness polarized light-emitting diodes. _Light Sci. Appl._ 1, e22 (2012). Google Scholar  * Faklis, D. & Morris, G. M. Diffractive optics technology for display

applications. In _Proc. SPIE 2407, Projection Displays_ (ed. Wu, M. H.) 57–61 (International Society for Optics and Photonics, 1995). * Piao, M.-L. & Kim, N. Achieving high levels of

color uniformity and optical efficiency for a wedge-shaped waveguide head-mounted display using a photopolymer. _Appl. Opt._ 53, 2180–2186 (2014). ADS  Google Scholar  * Zhou, Q., Xu, M.

& Wang, H. Internal quantum efficiency improvement of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well green light-emitting diodes. _Opto-Electron. Rev._ 24, 1–9 (2016). ADS  Google Scholar  * Zhuang, Z.

et al. Great enhancement in the excitonic recombination and light extraction of highly ordered InGaN/GaN elliptic nanorod arrays on a wafer scale. _Nanotechnology_ 27, 015301 (2016). ADS 

Google Scholar  * Wang, G. T., Li, Q., Wierer, J. J., Koleske, D. D. & Figiel, J. J. Top-down fabrication and characterization of axial and radial III-nitride nanowire LEDs. _Phys.

Status Solidi_ 211, 748–751 (2014). ADS  Google Scholar  * Xing, K., Gong, Y., Bai, J. & Wang, T. InGaN/GaN quantum well structures with greatly enhanced performance on a-plane GaN grown

using self-organized nano-masks. _Appl. Phys. Lett._ 99, 181907 (2011). ADS  Google Scholar  Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work—including all efforts by P.P.I., R.A.D., N.A.B.

and J.A.S.—was primarily supported by the Office of Naval Research (N00014-19-1-2004). Y.M. acknowledges support from Quantum Materials for Energy Efficient Neuromorphic Computing, an Energy

Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), under award no. DE-SC0019273. G.L. and C.W. acknowledge support from

the National Science Foundation (DMS-1839077) and the Simons Foundation (601954). A.A., S.N. and S.P.D. acknowledge support from the Solid State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center.

AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * These authors contributed equally: Prasad P. Iyer, Ryan A. DeCrescent. AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,

University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA Prasad P. Iyer, Yahya Mohtashami, Nikita A. Butakov, Shuji Nakamura, Steven P. DenBaars & Jon. A. Schuller * Department of

Physics, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA Ryan A. DeCrescent * Department of Material Science and Engineering, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa

Barbara, CA, USA Guillaume Lheureux, Abdullah Alhassan, Claude Weisbuch, Shuji Nakamura & Steven P. DenBaars * Solid State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center, University of

California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA Guillaume Lheureux, Abdullah Alhassan, Claude Weisbuch, Shuji Nakamura & Steven P. DenBaars Authors * Prasad P. Iyer View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Ryan A. DeCrescent View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Yahya

Mohtashami View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Guillaume Lheureux View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed 

Google Scholar * Nikita A. Butakov View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Abdullah Alhassan View author publications You can also search for

this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Claude Weisbuch View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Shuji Nakamura View author publications You can

also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Steven P. DenBaars View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Jon. A. Schuller View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS P.P.I. and J.A.S. proposed, conceived and supervised the project. P.P.I., Y.M. and N.A.B. fabricated

the devices. P.P.I. performed the numerical electromagnetics simulations and momentum-resolved luminescence measurements. R.A.D. performed momentum-resolved transmission and absorption

measurements, and derived and coded the analytical LDOS model. R.A.D. and G.L. performed quantum efficiency measurements. G.L. performed the band structure calculation under the supervision

of C.W. A.A. grew the quantum wells under the supervision of S.P.D. and S.N. P.P.I., R.A.D. and J.A.S. analysed the data. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Jon. A. Schuller. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing interests. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PUBLISHER’S NOTE Springer

Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary discussion,

Sections 1–7, and Figs. 1.1, 1.2 and 2–7. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Iyer, P.P., DeCrescent, R.A., Mohtashami, Y. _et al._

Unidirectional luminescence from InGaN/GaN quantum-well metasurfaces. _Nat. Photonics_ 14, 543–548 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-020-0641-x Download citation * Received: 02 May 2019

* Accepted: 21 April 2020 * Published: 01 June 2020 * Issue Date: September 2020 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-020-0641-x SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with

will be able to read this content: Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt

content-sharing initiative