Strongly directional emission from AlGaAs/GaAs light-emitting diodes

Abstract
We show for the first time that strongly directional emission of defined polarization can be achieved from conventional AlGaAs/GaAs double‐heterostructure surface‐emitting light‐emitting diodes (LEDs) via coupling to surface plasmons. By microstructuring the surface, we have fabricated LEDs with a beam divergence of less than 4° and an increased quantum efficiency. It is demonstrated that the surface plasmon excitation and emission mechanism have the potential to improve the performance of LEDs.