Low-resistance and highly-reflective Zn–Ni solid solution/Ag ohmic contacts for flip-chip light-emitting diodes

• Published in: Applied physics letters Vol. 83; no. 24; pp. 4990 - 4992
• Main Authors: Song, June-O, Leem, Dong-Seok, Kwak, J. S., Nam, O. H., Park, Y., Seong, Tae-Yeon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 15-12-2003
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.1633992

We have investigated a Zn–Ni solid solution/Ag scheme for use in producing high-quality ohmic contacts for flip-chip light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The as-deposited contact shows nonlinear I–V characteristics. However, oxidizing the contacts at temperatures of 350–550 °C for 1 min in air ambient results in linear I–V behaviors, yielding specific contact resistances of 10−4–10−5 Ω cm2. In addition, LEDs are fabricated with the oxidized Zn–Ni solid solution/Ag contacts and Ag single contacts. The typical I–V characteristics of the LEDs with the annealed Zn–Ni solid solution (2.5 nm)/Ag (200 nm) p-type contact layers reveal a forward-bias voltage of 3.25 V at an injection current of 20 mA, which is much better than that of the LEDs with the Ag (200 nm) contact layers.