| Abstract: | Rapid improvement in the efficiency of GaN-based LEDs not only speed up its applications for general illumination, but offer the possibilities for data transmission. This review is to provide an overview of current progresses of GaN-based LEDs for light communications. The modulation bandwidth of GaN-based LEDs has been first improved by optimizing the LED epilayer structures and the modulation bandwidth of 73 MHz was achieved at the driving current density of 40 A/cm2 by changing the multi-quantum well structures. After that, in order to increase the current density tolerance, different parallel flip-chip micro-LED arrays were fabricated. With a high injected current density of ～7900 A/cm2, a maximum modulation bandwidth of ～227 MHz was obtained with optical power greater than 30 mW. Besides the increase of carrier concentrations, the radiative recombination coefficient B was also enhanced by modifying the photon surrounding environment based on some novel nanostructures such as resonant cavity, surface plasmon, and photonic crystals. The optical 3 dB modulation bandwidth of GaN-based nanostructure LEDs with Ag nanoparticles was enhanced by 2 times compared with GaN-based nanostructure LEDs without Ag nanoparticles. Our results demonstrate that using the QW-SP coupling can effectively help to enhance the carrier spontaneous emission rate and also increase the modulation bandwidth for LEDs, especially for LEDs with high intrinsic IQE. In addition, we discuss the progress of the faster color conversion stimulated by GaN-based LEDs. |
