Light emitting diode, method for fabricating phosphor layer, and lighting apparatus

#This application claims the priority of Korean Patent Application Nos. 2009-0121826 filed on Dec. 9, 2009 and 2010-0114132 filed on Nov. 16, 2010, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.

#1. Field of the Invention

#The present invention relates to a light emitting diode, a method for fabricating a phosphor layer, and a lighting apparatus, and more particularly, to a light emitting diode which includes a light emitting diode chip having a surface coated with a phosphor layer to emit white light.

#The above and other aspects, features and other advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

#FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a light emitting diode package according to the related art;

#FIG. 2 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a light emitting diode according to an embodiment of the present invention;

#Exemplary embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. In the drawings, the thicknesses of layers and regions are exaggerated for clarity. Like reference numerals in the drawings denote like elements, and thus their description will be omitted.

#FIG. 2 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a light emitting diode according to an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 2, the light emitting diode 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention includes a light emitting diode chip 101 and a wavelength conversion portion 102 formed on a diode upper surface. The diode upper surface indicates a surface formed by the light emitting diode chip 101, when the light emitting diode chip 101 is viewed from above, more specifically, when viewed from above a light emission structure provided in the light emitting diode 101, the diode upper surface may be defined as a surface formed by the light emitting diode chip 101. The light emission structure includes first and second conductive-type semiconductor layers and an active layer, and is represented by S in FIG. 4. This will be described below in detail. From the aspect that the diode upper surface is a surface formed when viewed from above, the diode upper surface may include a surface formed by regions having different heights or containing different formation materials. For example, referring to FIG. 4, one upper surface may be formed by the light emission structure S, a p-type contact layer 208, and a p-electrode 203. Terms such as ‘upper surface’, ‘lower surface’, and ‘side surface’ used in this specification are based on the drawings. In actuality, the terms may be changed depending on the direction in which the light emitting diode is disposed.

#The wavelength conversion portion 102 performs a function of converting the wavelength of light emitted from the light diode chip 101. For this function, the wavelength conversion portion 102 may have a structure in which phosphors are dispersed in transparent resin. When the light of which the wavelength is converted by the wavelength conversion portion 102 and the light emitted from the light emitting diode 101 are mixed, the light emitting diode 100 may emit white light. For example, when the light emitting diode chip 101 emits blue light, yellow phosphors may be used. When the light emitting diode chip 101 emits ultraviolet light, red, green, and blue phosphors may be mixed and used. In addition, the colors of the light emitting diode chip 101 and the phosphors maybe combined in various manners, in order to realize the emission of white light. Furthermore, without being limited to the white color, only wavelength conversion materials such as green or red phosphors may be applied to implement a light source emitting the corresponding color.