Improved Electrostatic Discharge Protection in GaN-Based Vertical Light-Emitting Diodes by an Internal Diode

We first fabricated GaN-based vertical light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection internal diode. Despite the reduced emitting area due to the internal diode, the LEDs with the internal diode give a forward voltage of 3.42 V at 350 mA similar to that (3.40) of LEDs without the internal diode. It is shown that the output power of the LEDs with the internal diode is reduced by about 6% at 350 mA compared to reference LEDs without the internal diode. It is, however, further shown that the LEDs without the internal diode give a yield of 0% at the reverse voltages above 400 V, while the LEDs with the internal diode show a yield of ~ 90% at reverse voltages of 2-4 kV.