A Comparative Study on the Junction Temperature Measurements of LEDs With Raman Spectroscopy, Microinfrared (IR) Imaging, and Forward Voltage Methods

Energy efficiency, long life, exceptional color, and performance of solid-state light sources have resulted in a rapidly increasing trend in a number of practical applications especially for general lighting after a long history of incandescent lamps. Besides, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have thermal limitations that are vital for device quality and lifetime. Specifically, to improve the heat dissipation, one major parameter used to evaluate the LED performance is thermal resistance (R). Reducing the resistance can improve the heat flow from the p-n junction to ambient during operation. To quantify this parameter, the LED junction temperature (T
_i
) must be determined. In this paper, the junction temperatures are first measured with forward voltage method (FVM), Raman spectroscopy, and infrared (IR) imaging for a 465-nm bare blue LED chip (without any phosphor coating). Then, the same samples have been coated with a phosphor-particles added epoxy mixture (%13, 4300 CCT) to convert blue to white light, and the junction temperatures were measured again experimentally with the previously mentioned three methods and compared to each other. While IR imaging shows better capability on capturing the possible hotspots over the surface, Raman method and FVM were in reasonably good agreement on measuring the junction temperature for 465-nm blue (uncoated) LED chip. However, the measurements performed after coating have shown slightly different results with IR imaging and Raman methods, while FVM has shown consistent results for coated chips.