Next Generation 1024x1024 Individually Addressable Mid-Infrared LED Arrays Based on Cascaded WSuperlattice Emitters

Abstract

Mid-infrared light-emitting diodes (IRLEDs) offer high modulation bandwidth, high apparent radiance, and analog grayscale operation, making them attractive for large-area patterned emitters and high-speed illumination systems. However, their practical use in dense arrays has been limited by low wall-plug efficiency and thermal performance. Here we demonstrate a 1024×1024, 24 μm pitch mid-infrared IRLED array based on a 16-stage cascaded W-superlattice emitter, quadrupling the pixel count of prior 512×512 arrays. Improvements in superlattice design, backside roughening, and hybridization enabled >99% operability, with apparent temperatures of >1300 K for the full array, ≈1700 K in a quadrant, and >2000 K in process evaluation chips (PEC) devices, and wall-plug efficiencies up to ~1% at low injection. Advances in system control electronics and nanosecond-scale pixel response enabled >400 Hz frame rates with 11-bit radiance resolution. System performance is primarily limited by thermal droop under high drive, but synchronous operation enabled full-array output to 300 K with <1% droop, and thermal modeling predicts >2500 K apparent temperature for ~1% of pixels with enhanced cooling and active thermal management. These results establish large-format IRLED emitter arrays as a scalable platform for high-speed infrared illumination and pattern generation and show a path toward further performance gains through improved wall-plug efficiency and thermal control.