High power deep UV-LEDs for analytical optical instrumentation

Optical detection systems for portable analytical instrument require commercially available, miniaturized, robust and well performing light sources. Light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been extensively used in portable analytical devices as they are exceptionally stable light sources offering a number of advantages over traditional light sources including robustness, small size and low-cost. In the analytically more significant deep UV spectral range, LEDs suffer from low optical power and parasitic emissions in the visible wavelength range. Recently, newly developed deep UV-LEDs based on aluminium nitride (AlN) substrates have been introduced claiming improved performance, however there is little in terms of systematic evaluation of their performance parameters when used as light sources in chemical sciences. The aim of this work was to investigate the performance of these new generation deep UV‐LEDs, and assess their analytical applicability. Three AlN substrate based LEDs (OPTAN255H, OPTAN255J and OPTAN280J) were selected based on their maximum emission wavelength and maximum optical power. Their emission spectra, optical output power values and energy conversion efficiency (electrical/optical) were investigated. This work shows effects of forward current and voltages on the ratio of intensities of the visible parasitic emission to the desirable deep UV emission. Experimental results show that while the parasitic emission still exists with the new generation deep UV-LEDs, with increasing forward current the ratio of undesirable parasitic emission to the main deep UV emission rapidly decreased to values as low as 0.1% at the maximum forward current (100 mA). The new generation deep UV-LED (255 nm) was then applied as a light source for a photometric on-capillary detection, showing excellent linearity with stray light down to 0.8%, and effective pathlength above 92% of the used capillary inner diameter, and finally the performance was demonstrated by detection of four parabens separated by miniaturised capillary liquid chromatography.