Photoluminescence of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells grown by mass transport

We report on studies of an In_0.12Ga_0.88N/GaN structure with three 35 Å thick quantum wells (QWs) grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy with employment of mass transport. The mass-transport regions demonstrate a threading dislocation density less than 10⁷ cm⁻². The photoluminescence (PL) spectrum is dominated by a 40 meV—narrow line centered at 2.97 eV at 2 K. This emission has a typical PL decay time of about 5 ns at 2 K within the PL contour. An additional line with longer decay time (about 200 ns) is observed at an energy about 2.85 eV. The position of this line shifts towards higher energies with increasing excitation power. The data are consistent with a model, where the PL originates from at least two nonequivalent QWs, which could be realized due to a potential gradient across the layers.     

Growth of good quality InGaN multiple quantum wells by MOCVD

We report the optical properties of the blue emitting LED material that belongs to the III–V nitrides family. Quantum wells of InGaN were grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition. Sapphire was used as the substrate material. Continuous wave and time resolved luminescence experiments were conducted in the temperature range of liquid helium to room temperature. Very intense blue luminescence was observed upto the room temperature. From the very broad linewidth of the emission it was concluded that the compositional fluctuations were dominant. At very low temperatures the lifetimes were found to be somewhat longer than the free exciton case which indicated the localization of excitons at potential fluctuations in the InGaN lattice.     

Interactions between inversion domains and InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells investigated by transmission electron microscopy

The propagation properties of inversion domains (IDs) in InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (MQW) structures grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition have been investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The majority of the IDs, originating from the sapphire and/or buffer layer, propagate through the MQWs with normal wurtzite structure retaining their original structural features. Some of IDs could induce V-shaped pits in the MQW structures proposing a new formation mechanism for the so-called V-shaped defects. Detailed measurements show that a few IDs are found to be stopped in abnormal MQW regions, where In droplets appear due to phase separation. We presented direct evidence of pure In-phase droplets by means of high-resolution TEM. The above results provide new information on the structural defects in InGaN/GaN-based materials.     

Influence of the TEGa flow on the optical and structural properties of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells grown by MOCVD

We have investigated the influence of the TEGa flow on the optical and structural properties of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) with an indium composition around 20%. The samples with five-pairs InGaN/GaN MQWs were grown on sapphire substrates by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Photoluminescence spectra at 8 K showed that the MQWs grown with a low amount of TEGa flow gave a strong single peak and a higher emission energy. High-resolution X-ray diffraction measurements showed a deterioration of the InGaN/GaN interfaces in the sample grown with the large TEGa flow. The luminescence thermal quenching characteristics suggested that more structural defects acting as non-radiative recombination centers formed in the MQWs when the TEGa flow increased. The results indicate that decreasing the TEGa flow help to build up a new growth balance during the growth of InGaN wells, leading to less structural defects, more homogeneous indium distribution and the abrupt MQWs interfaces.     

Control of the morphology of InGaN/GaN quantum wells grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition

Various techniques for morphological evolution of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (MQW) structures grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition have been evaluated. Atomic force microscopy, photoluminescence (PL) and X-ray diffraction measurements have been used for characterization. It is shown that inclusions, that are generated into the V-defects in the InGaN quantum wells (QW), can be removed by introducing a small amount of hydrogen during the growth of GaN barriers. This hydrogen treatment results in partial loss of indium from the QWs, but smooth surface morphology of the MQW structure and improved optical quality of InGaN wells are obtained. The density of the V-defects could be reduced by reducing the dislocation density of the underlying GaN buffer.     

Luminescence studies of defects and piezoelectric fields in InGaN/GaN single quantum wells

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cathodoluminescence in the scanning electron microscope (SEM-CL) and photoluminescence (PL) studies were performed on a 30 nm GaN/2 nm In_0.28Ga _0.72N/2 μm GaN/(0 0 0 1) sapphire single quantum well (SQW) sample. SEM-CL was performed at low temperatures ≈8 K, and at an optimum accelerating voltage, around 4–6 kV to maximise the quantum well (QW) luminescence. The CL in the vicinity of characteristic “V-shaped” pits was investigated. The near band edge (BE) luminescence maps from the GaN showed bright rings inside the boundaries of the pits while the QW luminescence maps showed pits to be regions of low intensity. These observations are consistent with TEM observations showing the absence of QW material in the pits. Variations in both the BE and QW maps in the regions between the pits are ascribed to threading edge dislocations. The CL and PL QW luminescence was observed to blue-shift and broaden with increasing excitation intensity. This was accompanied by decreasing spatial resolution in the CL QW maps implying an increasing carrier diffusion length in the InGaN layer. The reasons for this behaviour are discussed. It is argued that screening of the piezoelectric field in the material may account for these observations.     

Cathodoluminescence study of the excitons localization in AlGaN/GaN and InGaN/GaN quantum wells grown on sapphire

Al_0.1Ga_0.9N(5 nm)/GaN(2 nm) and In_0.2Ga_0.8N/GaN quantum wells (QWs) grown on GaN/sapphire have been studied by cathodoluminescence (CL) spectroscopy and imaged using an experimental setup especially developed for scanning near-field CL microscopy, which combines a scanning force microscope and a scanning electron microscope. The CL spectra show the characteristic band edge emission peak of GaN at λ= 364 nm and the emission peaks related to the presence of QWs, at λ= 353 and 430 nm for the AlGaN/GaN and the InGaN/GaN samples, respectively. Monochromatic CL images reveal that the emission of the AlGaN/GaN and InGaN/GaN QWs is localized at the level of the grains observed by SFM. A cross sectional analysis of the InGaN/GaN sample gives insight into its growth and an estimation of the exciton diffusion length of about L=180 nm.     

X-ray and cathodoluminescence study on the effect of intentional long time annealing of the InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells grown by MOCVD

GaN-based InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) structure having a high-quality epilayer and coherent periodicity was grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. After thermal annealing of InGaN/GaN MQWs, the increase in temperature and annealing time caused the intermixing between the barrier and the wells, which in turn caused a decrease in periodicity on the high-resolution X-ray diffraction patterns. Thereby, we confirmed that the structural performance of InGaN MQWs is successively degrading with increasing thermal annealing temperature. Especially, InGaN MQWs of the sample annealed at 950 °C were profoundly damaged. The cathodoluminescence (CL) measurement indicated that MQWs emission intensity decreases with increasing thermal annealing temperature. Thus, the integrated CL intensity ratio of InGaN MQWs to GaN dramatically decreased while thermal annealing temperatures increased. This result caused the intermixing in MQWs to deteriorate the active layer performance. Furthermore, the peak position of MQWs showed a tendency of the red shift after high thermal annealing. It is suggested that the annealing-induced red shift in MQWs is attributed to the reduction of the inhomogeneity of the In content in the MQWs leading to the reduction of the quantized energies. Consequently, it indicates that the high temperature and the long-time thermal annealing would be inevitably followed by the structural destruction of InGaN MQWs.     

Magneto-photoluminescence of AlGaN/GaN quantum wells

The magneto-luminescence of GaN/AlGaN quantum wells in fields up to 52 T shows a field dependence that is strongly dependent on the well width. Strong redshifts are seen for the narrowest wells that are attributed to a Zeeman splitting. This is unexpected, since in bulk GaN epilayers the electron and hole g-factors of the lowest valence band cancel each other almost exactly. Therefore, we attribute this splitting to a reordering of the valence band due to the different band offsets caused by the strain and the aluminium component in the AlGaN barriers. The field dependence also gives information on the size of the exciton that has been converted into values for the exciton binding energy, and these values agree reasonably well with a theory that includes the presence of the electric field.     

Strain analysis of InGaN/GaN multi quantum well LED structures

Five period InGaN/GaN multi quantum well (MQW) light emitting diode (LED) structures were grown by a metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) system on c‐plane sapphire. The structural characteristics as a strain‐stress analysis of hexagonal epilayers MQWs were determined by using nondestructive high resolution x‐ray diffraction (HRXRD) in detail. The strain/stress analysis in AlN, GaN, and InGaN thin films with a variation of the In molar fraction in the InGaN well layers was conducted based on the precise measurement of the lattice parameters. The a‐ and c‐lattice parameters of the structures were calculated from the peak positions obtained by rocking the theta axis at the vicinity of the symmetric and asymmetric plane reflection angles, followed by the in‐plane and out‐of‐plane strains. The biaxial and hydrostatic components of the strain were extracted from the obtained a‐ and c‐direction strains values.     

Electroluminescence from InGaN quantum dots in a fully monolithic GaN/AlInN cavity

Thermodynamic analyses of halide vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) for the growth of ZnO were conducted to investigate the effects of growth conditions against growth rates. The partial pressures of gaseous species in equilibrium with ZnO and the resultant driving force for ZnO deposition are calculated with respect to temperatures, input H₂ pressures and input VI/II ratios. It has been revealed that the driving force is weakly dependent on the temperature and is still positive even at 1200 °C, while it greatly decreases at higher temperatures in the presence of H₂. The driving force is also significantly influenced when the VI/II ratio is below 1000. The experimental growth rates substantially agree with the dispositions of the driving force expected from the thermodynamic analyses.     

Growth of height-controlled InGaN quantum dots on GaN

InGaN height-controlled quantum dots (HCQDs) were grown by alternately depositing In_0.4Ga_0.6N QD and In_0.1Ga_0.9N spacer layers on a seed In_0.4Ga_0.6N QD layer. Structural and optical studies showed that the height of the InGaN QDs was controlled by the deposition cycle of In_0.4Ga_0.6N/In_0.1Ga_0.9N layers. Photoluminescence studies showed that the In_0.4Ga_0.6N HCQDs provided deep potential wells and the piezoelectric field-induced quantum-confined Stark effect was negligibly small. These phenomena are attributed to variation in quantum confinement energy in the electronically coupled InGaN HCQDs providing deep potential wells.     

Effects of barrier growth temperature on the properties of InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells

The effects of the growth temperature and ambient of GaN quantum barriers on the characteristics of InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells (MQWs) grown by a thermally pre-cracked ion-supplied metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (TPIS-MOCVD) system were investigated. The improvement of optical, structural properties and surface morphology in the MQWs with increasing the growth temperature of quantum barriers was found. Without a GaN capping layer, there were many pits and the thickness of quantum pair reduced by the thermal etching during the temperature-ramping process. Photoluminescence (PL) peaks showed a blue-shift and double peaks, but relative PL intensity abruptly increased due to the suppression of deep level related defects and smooth surface morphology caused by the increased surface mobility of adatom in the high temperature region. By using a GaN capping layer on the InGaN well layer, the thermal decomposition of the InGaN well layer was suppressed and pits on the surface abruptly reduced. A hydrogen carrier gas for the GaN barrier growth also improved the optical and structural properties of MQWs.     

Metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy of GaN and GaInN/GaN heterostructures and quantum wells

This paper reviews the growth and some characteristics of group III-nitrides by metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy with a particular focus on GaInN layers and heterostructures. We discuss the problems encountered with the low In incorporation efficiency. This can be partly compensated by larger growth rates and higher nitrogen-hydrogen ratios in the carrier gas. However, the grown layers with larger In content show evidence of composition fluctuations and even surface roughening due to problems probably arising from the large lattice mismatch to GaN and from the miscibility gap predicted for essentially the whole composition range. This influences strongly the spectroscopic properties. Consequences on the functionality of optoelectronic devices are also shortly discussed.     

InGaAsP/InP multiple quantum wells grown by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy

We have grown In₁-_xGa_xAs_yP₁-_y/InP multiple quantum well structures with 1.3 μm excitonic absorption at room temperature by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy. In-situ composition determination in GaAs₁-_xP_x and InAs_xP₁-_x was carried out by measuring group-V-induced intensity oscillations of reflection high-energy electron diffraction. Based on the in-situ composition calibration for these ternary end members, Ga and As compositions in the quaternary compound, In₁-_xGa_xAs_yP₁-_y, were controlled successfully. Measurements by X-ray rocking curve, low-temperature photoluminescence and absorption spectroscopy indicate that high-quality In₁-_xGa_xAs_yP₁-_y/InP multiple quantum well samples were obtained.     

Effect of strain in the barrier layer on structural and optical properties of highly strained In0.77Ga0.23As/InGaAs multiple quantum wells

We have investigated the effect of the barrier strain in +1.65%-strained In_0.77Ga_0.23As/InGaAs multiple quantum wells (MQWs) on the structural and optical properties by means of double-crystal X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and room-temperature photoluminescence (PL). The optimum condition of the barrier layer deduced from the X-ray and the PL measurements was nearly lattice-matching, i.e., strain from −0.40 to +0.20% is required for the sharp X-ray diffraction satellite peaks and from −0.17 to +0.14% for large PL intensity. Under compressive strain in the barrier layer, misfit dislocations are introduced into the MQW structures. In the case of tensile strain, however, threading dislocations originating from the thickness undulations in the wells and the barriers are observed. The TEM studies reveal that the thickness undulations are induced by the compositional modulation. The undulation and modulation are enhanced by increasing the tensile strain in the barrier layers. These results indicate that the strain-compensation does not work well on the MQW containing such highly strained InGaAs wells.     

Growth of bulk InGaN films and quantum wells by atmospheric pressure metalorganic chemical vapour deposition

InGaN bulk layers and single quantum wells were grown on 1.4 to 2.4 μm thick GaN on sapphire films by atmospheric pressure metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (AP-MOCVD). The morphology of the epitaxial layers was strongly affected by the V/III ratio in the gas phase. The incorporation efficiency of indium was observed to increase with higher growth rates and decreasing temperature, but was independent of the V/III ratio in the investigated parameter range. In_0.16Ga_0.84N single quantum wells showed intense quantum well related luminescence at room temperature, with a full width at half maximum of 7.9 nm at a thickness of 50 Å. Single quantum wells embedded in InGaN of graded composition showed superior properties compared to quantum wells with In_0.04Ga_0.94N barriers of constant composition.     

Charge storage and screening of the internal field in GaN/AlGaN quantum wells

The optical spectra of a set of high quality quantum wells, with well characterized structural parameters, are presented here. We propose a quantitative calculation for the measured emission energies which takes into account the spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization fields and the field-screening effect due to electron-hole photogenerated pairs; such an effect is especially effective in wide QW samples which in fact behave like mesoscopic capacitors.     

InGaN/GaN微米阵列结构的生长及发光性能研究

采用金属有机化学气相外延技术,在图形化蓝宝石衬底上通过选区外延可控生长了三种不同形貌的InGaN/GaN微米阵列结构,阵列尺寸均为6μm.其中,六方片状阵列结构以(0001)c面为主,高度为0.6μm;六棱台状阵列结构包括一个(0001)c面和六个等效的(10-11)半极性面,高度为1.2μm;六棱锥状阵列结构以(10...     

Optical characteristics of m-plane InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well grown on LiAlO2 (1 0 0) by MOVPE

We investigate the optical properties of m-plane InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well grown on LiAlO₂ substrate by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy. Polarization-dependent photoluminescence and polarization-dependent photoluminescence excitation measurements have been performed at low temperature to study the optical absorption and emission characteristics. The main emission band possesses large polarization anisotropy which may be attributed to the anisotropic biaxial strain. We found the optical emission is not influenced by the polarization-induced electric field from the excitation-dependent photoluminescence measurements. From our results, we attribute the low-temperature emission band around 3.2 eV to interband transition in the quantum well. Besides, the mechanism of the main emission band is associated with interband transition and subsequent carrier localization. The realization of good-quality non-polar GaN-based devices can then be expected in near future.