A tissue sampling device for retrieving one or more tissue samples from a patient is either handheld or mounted to a moveable carriage and advanced so that the needle tip is introduced into the patient. Such VLED structures fabricated with a SixNy layer may have increased luminous efficiency when compared to conventional VLED structures fabricated without a SixNy layer. Bad pixels behave from a group including pixels which do not respond electrically and pixels which are statistically different from surrounding pixels in the array of pixels. The fill gas has a viscosity that is less than the viscosity of nitrogen under like conditions. The die includes at least one exposed surface for contacting an external heat sink. The fiber reinforced resin layer includes at least two prepreg sheets, each of which is formed by impregnating a thermoplastic resin into continuous reinforcing fibers arrayed in one direction such that the volume ratio of the continuous reinforcing fibers is in the range of 40 to 80%.