Enhancement of light extraction from freestanding GaN nanocolumn slab with bottom subwavelength nanostructures

It is of great interest to investigate a freestanding GaN nanocolumn slab with bottom subwavelength nanostructures. A low-index buffer layer offers more paths accessible to emit light in air, and the nanostructures break the total internal reflection condition at the bottom surface to improve the light-extraction efficiency. The GaN nanocolumns and subwavelength nanostructures can also effectively suppress optical reflection over a broad wavelength range. In this work, the freestanding GaN nanocolumn slabs with bottom subwavelength nanostructures are implemented with a diameter of 1200 μm by a combination of self-assembly technique, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology, manufacturing of silicon, and epitaxial growth of GaN. Reflectance results experimentally show that optical reflection is greatly reduced by introducing the GaN nanocolumns and subwavelength nanostructures, and photoluminescence measurements demonstrate that the extracted light is significantly enhanced with the assistance of the low-index buffer layer and bottom subwavelength nanostructures.