A ground-breaking roadmap of III-nitride solid-state deep-ultraviolet light emitters is demonstrated to realize the wafer-scale fabrication of devices in vertical injection configuration, from 2 to 4 inches. The epitaxial device structure is stacked on a GaN template instead of conventionally adopted AlN, where the primary concern of the tensile strain for Al-rich AlGaN on GaN is addressed via an innovative decoupling strategy, making the device structure decoupled from the underlying GaN template. Moreover, the strategy provides a protection cushion against the stress mutation during the removal of substrates. As such, large-sized wafers can be obtained without surface cracks, even after the removal of the sapphire substrates by laser lift-off. Wafer-scale fabrication of 280 nm vertical injection deep-ultraviolet light-emitting diodes is eventually demonstrated, where a light output power of 65.2 mW is achieved at a current of 200 mA, largely thanks to the significant improvement of light extraction. This work will definitely speed up the application of III-nitride solid-state deep-ultraviolet light emitters featuring high performance and scalability.
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