There are two physical phenomena governing the light emission in InGaN quantum structures: the internal electric fields and the In composition fluctuations. Both these effects manifest through the blue shift of the wavelength emission with the excitation intensity and both of them have the pronounced influence on the light emitting properties of these structures. In order to discriminate between these two effects, we fabricated two identical structures: one with the quantum barriers doped with silicon (method for internal electric field screening) and the other with an undoped active region. Under the optical excitation the emission peak shifts by almost 35 nm (Si doped) and 50nm (without Si). Additionally, we studied temperature dependence of the emission peak position. In case of low temperatures and at RT and high pumping energy, emission energy position is almost the same for both samples. Our observations lead us to the conclusion that at low temperatures and at high pumping regime the Quantum Confined Stark Effect (QCSE) is totally suppressed. While this is understandable that at high carrier injection QCSE is screened, the origin of the low temperature effect is much less clear. We can speculate that at the lowest temperature the carriers are localized eliminating the spatial separation of holes and electrons wavefunctions. Measured cathodoluminescence (CL) maps show the same level of the indium fluctuations for both samples. At higher excitation the fluctuations starts to be less visible suggesting band filling of states. Finally we compare recombination times by means of time resolved photoluminescence.

Date Published: 19 April 2017
PDF: 1 pages
Proc. SPIE 10104, Gallium Nitride Materials and Devices XII, 101040D (19 April 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2252205

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10104:
Gallium Nitride Materials and Devices XII
Jen-Inn Chyi; Hiroshi Fujioka; Hadis Morkoç; Yasushi Nanishi; Ulrich T. Schwarz; Jong-In Shim, Editor(s)