Vertically aligned InGaN nanowires with engineered axial In composition for highly efficient visible light emission.

We report on the fabrication of novel InGaN nanowires (NWs) with improved crystalline quality and high radiative efficiency for applications as nanoscale visible light emitters. Pristine InGaN NWs grown under a uniform In/Ga molar flow ratio (UIF) exhibited multi-peak white-like emission and a high density of dislocation-like defects. A phase separation and broad emission with non-uniform luminescent clusters were also observed for a single UIF NW investigated by spatially resolved cathodoluminescence. Hence, we proposed a simple approach based on engineering the axial In content by increasing the In/Ga molar flow ratio at the end of NW growth. This new approach yielded samples with a high luminescence intensity, a narrow emission spectrum, and enhanced crystalline quality. Using time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy, the UIF NWs exhibited a long radiative recombination time (τr) and low internal quantum efficiency (IQE) due to strong exciton localization and carrier trapping in defect states. In contrast, NWs with engineered In content demonstrated three times higher IQE and a much shorter τr due to mitigated In fluctuation and improved crystal quality

Intrinsic degradation mechanism of nearly lattice-matched InAlN layers grown on GaN substrates

Thanks to its high refractive index contrast, band gap and polarization mismatch compared to GaN, In0.17Al0.83N layers lattice-matched to GaN are an attractive solution for applications such as distributed Bragg reflectors, ultraviolet light-emitting diodes, or high electron mobility transistors. In order to study the structural degradation mechanism of InAlN layers with increasing thickness, we performed metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy of InAlN layers of thicknesses ranging from 2 to 500 nm, on free-standing (0001) GaN substrates with a low density of threading dislocations, for In compositions of 13.5% (layers under tensile strain), and 19.7% (layers under compressive strain). In both cases, a surface morphology with hillocks is initially observed, followed by the appearance of V-defects. We propose that those hillocks arise due to kinetic roughening, and that V-defects subsequently appear beyond a critical hillock size. It is seen that the critical thickness for the appearance of V-defects increases together with the surface diffusion length either by increasing the temperature or the In flux because of a surfactant effect. In thick InAlN layers, a better (worse) In incorporation occurring on the concave (convex) shape surfaces of the V-defects is observed leading to a top phase-separated InAlN layer lying on the initial homogeneous InAlN layer after V-defects coalescence. It is suggested that similar mechanisms could be responsible for the degradation of thick InGaN layers

Aging characteristics of blue InGaN micro-light emitting diodes at an extremely high current density of 3.5kAcm−2

The aging characteristics of blue InGaN micro-light emitting diodes (micro-LEDs) with different sizes have been studied at an extremely high current density 3.5 kA cm−2 for emerging microLED applications including visible light communication (VLC), micro-LED pumped organic lasers and optogenetics. The light output power of micro-LEDs first increases and then decreases due to the competition of Mg activation in p-GaN layer and defect generation in the active region. The smaller micro-LEDs show less light output power degradation compared with larger micro-LEDs, which is attributed to the lower junction temperature of smaller micro-LEDs. It is found that the high current density without additional junction temperature cannot induce significant micro-LED degradation at room temperature but the combination of the high current density and high junction temperature leads to strong degradation. Furthermore, the cluster LEDs, composed of a micro-LED array, have been developed with both high light output power and less light output degradation for micro-LED applications in solid state lighting and VLC

High Temperature Wide Bandgap Light Emitting Diodes for Harsh Environment Applications

The need for high temperature, high power density power modules for applications such as electric vehicles and space exploration has driven the research into wide bandgap LEDs due to their potential operation at elevated temperatures. Wide bandgap LEDs offer an attractive solution due to properties such as high temperature tolerance, strong radiation hardness and good thermal conductivity. In this thesis, the electrical properties of GaN-on-SiC heterojunctions are studied as a precursor to an LED study, and the optical characterization of an InGaN/GaN MQW is reported. The GaN-on-SiC study revealed that these wide bandgap LEDs have linear sensitivity at high temperatures. The InGaN/GaN MQW PL results revealed that as the temperature increased, the bandgap decreased as well, thus affecting the overall intensity of the material. The results of this study indicate the feasibility of the integration of wide bandgap LEDs into high temperature power modules

Design, Growth, and Characterization of III-Sb and III-N Materials for Photovoltaic Applications

abstract: Photovoltaic (PV) energy has shown tremendous improvements in the past few decades showing great promises for future sustainable energy sources. Among all PV energy sources, III-V-based solar cells have demonstrated the highest efficiencies. This dissertation investigates the two different III-V solar cells with low (III-antimonide) and high (III-nitride) bandgaps. III-antimonide semiconductors, particularly aluminum (indium) gallium antimonide alloys, with relatively low bandgaps, are promising candidates for the absorption of long wavelength photons and thermophotovoltaic applications. GaSb and its alloys can be grown metamorphically on non-native substrates such as GaAs allowing for the understanding of different multijunction solar cell designs. The work in this dissertation presents the molecular beam epitaxy growth, crystal quality, and device performance of AlxGa1−xSb solar cells grown on GaAs substrates. The motivation is on the optimization of the growth of AlxGa1−xSb on GaAs (001) substrates to decrease the threading dislocation density resulting from the significant lattice mismatch between GaSb and GaAs. GaSb, Al0.15Ga0.85Sb, and Al0.5Ga0.5Sb cells grown on GaAs substrates demonstrate open-circuit voltages of 0.16, 0.17, and 0.35 V, respectively. In addition, a detailed study is presented to demonstrate the temperature dependence of (Al)GaSb PV cells. III-nitride semiconductors are promising candidates for high-efficiency solar cells due to their inherent properties and pre-existing infrastructures that can be used as a leverage to improve future nitride-based solar cells. However, to unleash the full potential of III-nitride alloys for PV and PV-thermal (PVT) applications, significant progress in growth, design, and device fabrication are required. In this dissertation, first, the performance of ii InGaN solar cells designed for high temperature application (such as PVT) are presented showing robust cell performance up to 600 ⁰C with no significant degradation. In the final section, extremely low-resistance GaN-based tunnel junctions with different structures are demonstrated showing highly efficient tunneling characteristics with negative differential resistance (NDR). To improve the efficiency of optoelectronic devices such as UV emitters the first AlGaN tunnel diode with Zener characteristic is presented. Finally, enabled by GaN tunnel junction, the first tunnel contacted InGaN solar cell with a high VOC value of 2.22 V is demonstrated.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

Violet electroluminescence of AlInGaN-InGaN multiquantum-well light-emitting diodes: Quantum-confined stark effect and heating effect

Electroluminescence (EL) from AlInGaN-InGaN multiquantum-well violet light-emitting diodes is investigated as a function of forward bias. Two distinct regimes have been identified: 1) quantum-confined Stark effect at low and moderately high forward biases; 2) heating effect at high biases. In the different regimes, the low-temperature EL spectra exhibit different spectral features which are discussed in detail. © 2007 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

The impact of trench defects in InGaN/GaN light emitting diodes and implications for the "green gap" problem

The impact of trench defects in blue InGaN/GaN light emitting diodes (LEDs) has been investigated. Two mechanisms responsible for the structural degradation of the multiple quantum well (MQW) active region were identified. It was found that during the growth of the p-type GaN capping layer, loss of part of the active region enclosed within a trench defect occurred, affecting the top-most QWs in the MQW stack. Indium platelets and voids were also found to form preferentially at the bottom of the MQW stack. The presence of high densities of trench defects in the LEDs was found to relate to a significant reduction in photoluminescence and electroluminescence emission efficiency, for a range of excitation power densities and drive currents. This reduction in emission efficiency was attributed to an increase in the density of non-radiative recombination centres within the MQW stack, believed to be associated with the stacking mismatch boundaries which form part of the sub-surface structure of the trench defects. Investigation of the surface of green-emitting QW structures found a two decade increase in the density of trench defects, compared to its blue-emitting counterpart, suggesting that the efficiency of green-emitting LEDs may be strongly affected by the presence of these defects. Our results are therefore consistent with a model that the “green gap” problem might relate to localized strain relaxation occurring through defects.This is the accepted manuscript version. The final version is available from AIP at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/105/11/10.1063/1.4896279?showFTTab=true&containerItemId=content/aip/journal/apl

Modeling challenges for high-efficiency visible light-emitting diodes

In order to predict through numerical simulation the optical and carrier transport properties of GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs), a genuine quantum approach should be combined with an atomistic description of the electronic structure. However, computational considerations have elicited the empirical inclusion of quantum contributions within conventional semiclassical drift-diffusion approaches. The lack of first-principles validation tools has left these \u201cquantum corrections\u201d largely untested, at least in the context of LED simulation. We discuss here the results obtained comparing state-of-the-art commercial numerical simulators, in order to assess the predictive capabilities of some of the most important quantum-based models complementing the drift-diffusion equations

Development of III-nitride bipolar devices: avalanche photodiodes, laser diodes, and double-heterojunction bipolar transistors

This dissertation describes the development of III-nitride (III-N) bipolar devices for optoelectronic and electronic applications. Research mainly involves device design, fabrication process development, and device characterization for Geiger-mode gallium nitride (GaN) deep-UV (DUV) p-i-n avalanche photodiodes (APDs), indium gallium nitride (InGaN)/GaN-based violet/blue laser diodes (LDs), and GaN/InGaN-based npn radio-frequency (RF) double-heterojunction bipolar transistors (DHBTs). All the epitaxial materials of these devices were grown in the Advanced Materials and Devices Group (AMDG) led by Prof. Russell D. Dupuis at the Georgia Institute of Technology using the metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) technique. Geiger-mode GaN p-i-n APDs have important applications in DUV and UV single-photon detections. In the fabrication of GaN p-i-n APDs, the major technical challenge is the sidewall leakage current. To address this issue, two surface leakage reduction schemes have been developed: a wet-etching surface treatment technique to recover the dry-etching-induced surface damage, and a ledged structure to form a surface depletion layer to partially passivate the sidewall. The first Geiger-mode DUV GaN p-i-n APD on a free-standing (FS) c-plane GaN substrate has been demonstrated. InGaN/GaN-based violet/blue/green LDs are the coherent light sources for high-density optical storage systems and the next-generation full-color LD display systems. The design of InGaN/GaN LDs has several challenges, such as the quantum-confined stark effect (QCSE), the efficiency droop issue, and the optical confinement design optimization. In this dissertation, a step-graded electron-blocking layer (EBL) is studied to address the efficiency droop issue. Enhanced internal quantum efficiency (ɳi) has been observed on 420-nm InGaN/GaN-based LDs. Moreover, an InGaN waveguide design is implemented, and the continuous-wave (CW)-mode operation on 460-nm InGaN/GaN-based LDs is achieved at room temperature (RT). III-N HBTs are promising devices for the next-generation RF and power electronics because of their advantages of high breakdown voltages, high power handling capability, and high-temperature and harsh-environment operation stability. One of the major technical challenges to fabricate high-performance RF III-N HBTs is to suppress the base surface recombination current on the extrinsic base region. The wet-etching surface treatment has also been employed to lower the surface recombination current. As a result, a record small-signal current gain (hfe) > 100 is achieved on GaN/InGaN-based npn DHBTs on sapphire substrates. A cut-off frequency (fT) > 5.3 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency (fmax) > 1.3 GHz are also demonstrated for the first time. Furthermore, A FS c-plane GaN substrate with low epitaxial defect density and good thermal dissipation ability is used for reduced base bulk recombination current. The hfe > 115, collector current density (JC) > 141 kA/cm², and power density > 3.05 MW/cm² are achieved at RT, which are all the highest values reported ever on III-N HBTs.PhDCommittee Chair: Shen, Shyh-Chiang; Committee Member: Dupuis, Russell; Committee Member: Jiang, Zhigang; Committee Member: Mukhopadhyay, Saibal; Committee Member: Yoder, Dougla