Flaw-containing alumina hollow nanostructures have ultrahigh fracture strength to be incorporated into high-efficiency GaN light-emitting diodes

Abstract

In the present study, we found that alpha-alumina hollow nanoshell structure can exhibit an ultrahigh fracture strength even though it contains a significant number of nanopores. By systematically performing in situ mechanical testing and finite element simulations, we could measure that the fracture strength of an alpha-alumina hollow nanoshell structure is about four times higher than that of the conventional bulk size alpha-alumina. The high fracture strength of the alpha-alumina hollow nanoshell structure can be explained in terms of conventional fracture mechanics, in that the position and size of the nanopores are the most critical factors determining the fracture strength, even at the nanoscales. More importantly, by deriving a fundamental understanding, we would be able to provide guidelines for the design of reliable ceramic nanostructures for advanced GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs). To that end, we demonstrated how our ultrastrong alpha-alumina hollow nanoshell structures could be successfully incorporated into GaN LEDs, thereby greatly improving the luminous efficiency and output power of the LEDs by 2.2 times higher than that of conventional GaN LEDs.