On September 17, the CEA-Leti and CRHEA (Center for Research on Heteroepitaxy and Its Applications), the electronics and information technology laboratory under the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA), announced a breakthrough in Micro LED technology, achieving stable red, green, and blue light colors for the first time in a single material system, which is expected to promote the development of full-color micro-display technology for AR/VR.
The research findings have been published in *Nature Communications Materials* and will be formally presented at the MicroLED Connect conference in Eindhoven, Netherlands, on September 24. The paper is titled "Growth of RGB InGaN quantum wells with up to 40% indium content on InGaN nanopyramids".
The paper details how the team used metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) to fabricate InGaN nanopyramids on SiC substrates with epitaxial graphene layers, thereby alleviating the challenge of limited indium doping. Experimental results show that the researchers achieved a record-breaking 40% InN molar fraction in the quantum well, enabling reliable red light generation while maintaining high crystal quality.
Image source: CEA-Leti
It is understood that Micro LED microdisplays with pixels smaller than 10 micrometers have long faced integration challenges, namely, the efficiency of phosphide red light devices decreases significantly after miniaturization, while color conversion methods are limited by accuracy and stability. CEA-Leti's method breaks through these limitations, enabling RGB light sources to be natively generated within the same material system, simplifying the device structure and improving performance.
Researchers say this latest technology solves one of the most challenging problems in display miniaturization, opening a new path for manufacturing high-brightness, high-resolution full-color MicroLED microdisplays, which is crucial for the development of next-generation AR/VR headsets and smart glasses.
CEA-Leti emphasizes that this achievement is not only expected to drive the development of immersion displays, but can also be extended to a wider range of applications such as high-speed optical communication, photovoltaic devices, and renewable hydrogen production.
