Chromium/Nickel-Doped Silicon Oxide Thin-Film Electrode: Mechanism and Application to Microscale Light-Emitting Diodes

Light extraction of microscale light-emitting diodes (μLEDs) is fundamentally limited by p-type metal electrodes for current injection due to the small pixel size of the LEDs. We propose Cr/Ni-doped silicon oxide (CN-SiOX) films as p-type contact electrodes for blue μLEDs to increase the light-output power under the same emitting areas. The conductivity of CN-SiOX electrode originates from the diffusion of top Cr/Ni atoms via electric-field-induced doping treatments, which allows for effective hole injection into the active layer. Consequently, we achieved a 62% improvement in the current density and a 47% increase in the light-output power compared to ITO-based μLEDs.