A method of producing one or more vertical light-emitting diode (VLED) dies having a light-emitting diode (LED) stack comprising Group III-Group V combinations of elements (e.g., GaN, AlN, InN, AlGaN, InGaN, and InAlGaN) and a metal substrate is provided. The techniques include forming an InGaN or InAlGaN interface layer above a suitable growth-supporting substrate, such as sapphire or silicon carbide (SiC), and forming the LED stack above the interface layer. Such an interface layer may absorb a majority of the energy from a laser pulse used during laser lift-off of the growth-supporting substrate in an effort to prevent damage to the light emitting layers of the LED stack, which may result in improved brightness performance over VLED dies produced with conventional buffer layers.