Current, voltage and temperature distribution modeling of light-emitting diodes based on electrical and thermal circuit analysis

Abstract

We demonstrate a modeling method based on the three-dimensional electrical and thermal circuit analysis to extract current, voltage and temperature distributions of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In our model, the electrical circuit analysis is performed first to extract the current and voltage distributions in the LED. Utilizing the result obtained from the electrical circuit analysis as distributed heat sources, the thermal circuit is set up by using the duality between Fourier's law and Ohm's law. From the analysis of the thermal circuit, the temperature distribution at each epitaxial film is successfully obtained. Comparisons of experimental and simulation results are made by employing an InGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-well blue LED. Validity of the electrical circuit analysis is confirmed by comparing the light distribution at the surface. Since the temperature distribution at each epitaxial film cannot be obtained experimentally, the apparent temperature distribution is compared at the surface of the LED chip. Also, experimentally obtained average junction temperature is compared with the value calculated from the modeling, yielding a very good agreement. The analysis method based on the circuit modeling has an advantage of taking distributed heat sources as inputs, which is essential for high-power devices with significant self-heating.