This article is cited in 8 papers

Semiconductor physics

Efficiency droop in GaN LEDs at high injection levels: Role of hydrogen

N. I. Bochkareva^a, I. A. Sheremet^b, Yu. G. Shreter<sup>a

a</sup> Ioffe Institute, St. Petersburg
^b Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow

Abstract: Point defects in GaN and, in particular, their manifestation in the photoluminescence, optical absorption, and recombination current in light-emitting diodes with InGaN/GaN quantum wells are analyzed. The results of this analysis demonstrate that the wide tail of defect states in the band gap of GaN facilitates the trap-assisted tunneling of thermally activated carriers into the quantum well, but simultaneously leads to a decrease in the nonradiative-recombination lifetime and to an efficiency droop as the quasi-Fermi levels intersect the defect states with increasing forward bias. The results reveal the dominant role of hydrogen in the recombination activity of defects with dangling bonds and in the efficiency of GaN-based devices.

Received: 05.04.2016
Accepted: 06.04.2016

 English version: Semiconductors, 2016, 50:10, 1369–1376

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