Milliwatt Power Deep Ultraviolet Light-Emitting Diodes Over Sapphire with Emission at 278 nm

We report on AlGaN multiple-quantum-well (MQW)-based deep ultraviolet light-emitting diodes over sapphire with peak emission at 278 nm. A new buffer layer growth process was used to reduce the number of defects and hence the nonradiative recombination. The improved material quality and carrier confinement resulted in pulsed powers as high as 3 mW at 278 nm and a significantly reduced deep-level-assisted long-wavelength emission