Thermoelastic stress field investigation of GaN material for laser lift-off technique based on finite element method

The transient thermoelastic stress fields of GaN films is analyzed by the finite element method for the laser lift-off (LLO) technique. Stress distributions in GaN films irradiated by pulse laser with different energy densities as functions of time and depth are simulated. The results show that the high thermoelastic stress distributions in GaN films localize within about 1 μm below the GaN/Al₂O₃ interface using proper laser parameters. It is also found that GaN films can avoid the thermal deformation because the maximum thermoelastic stress 4.28 GPa is much smaller than the yield strength of GaN 15GPa. The effects of laser beam dimension and the thickness of GaN films on stress distribution are also analyzed. The variation range of laser beam dimension as a function of the thickness of GaN films is simulated to keep the GaN films free of thermal deformation. LLO experiments are also carried out. GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are separated from sapphire substrates using the parameters obtained from the simulation. Compared with devices before LLO, P-I-V measurements of GaN-based LEDs after LLO show that the electrical and optical characteristics improve greatly, indicating that no stress damage is brought to GaN films using proper parameters obtained by calculation during LLO.