Buried Aperture Nitride Light-Emiting Device

An optoelectronic device to emit light, the optoelectronic device comprising:

• a sapphire substrate;
• an active layer including a nitride material formed over the sapphire substrate, said active layer including an active region;
• an electrically resistive aperture layer formed from a crystallized amorphous material, the resistive aperture layer including an aperture;
• and
• a conducting material layer formed over said resistive aperture layer, a portion of the conducting material layer filling the aperture, such that current is directed from the aperture into the active region to thereby cause light generation.

A vertical surface-emitting optoelectronic device including a buried current-directing aperture, comprising:

• a sapphire substrate;
• a first distributed Bragg mirror structure formed over said sapphire substrate;
• an indium aluminum gallium nitride (InAlGaN) active layer formed over the first distributed Bragg mirror structure, the active layer including an active region for emitting light;
• a crystalline, electrically resistive amorphous aluminum nitride (AlN) aperture layer formed over the active region, the aperture layer having a first resistivity and a first index of refraction, the aperture layer defining an aperture directly over the active region;
• an indium aluminum gallium nitride (InAlGaN) crystalline upper layer formed over said resistive aperture layer, the crystalline upper layer doped to be electrically conductive such that the upper layer has a second resistivity that is substantially lower than the first resistivity, at least a portion of the crystalline upper layer filling in the aperture in the aperture layer such that the filled in aperture has a second index of refraction lower than the first index of refraction, the upper layer material in the aperture together with the electrically resistive aperture layer acting together to both direct current into the active region to generate light and to confine light generated thereby;
• and
• a second distributed Bragg mirror structure formed over the crystalline upper layer to thereby form a resonant-cavity light-emitting device.