Characteristics of efficiency droop in GaN-based light emitting diodes with an insertion layer between the multiple quantum wells and n-GaN layer

Abstract

We have studied the characteristics of efficiency droop in GaN-based light emitting diodes (LEDs) with different kinds of insertion layers (ILs) between the multiple quantum wells (MQWs) layer and n-GaN layer. By using low-temperature (LT) (780 degrees C) n-GaN as IL, the efficiency droop behavior can be alleviated from 54% in reference LED to 36% from the maximum value at low injection current to 200 mA, which is much smaller than that of 49% in LED with InGaN/GaN short-period superlattices layer. The polarization field in MQWs is found to be smallest in LED with InGaN/GaN SPS layer. However, the V-shape defect density, about 5.3 x 10(8) cm(-2), in its MQWs region is much higher than that value of 2.9 x 108 cm(-2) in LED with LT n-GaN layer, which will lead to higher defect-related tunneling leakage of carriers. Therefore, we can mainly assign this alleviation of efficiency droop to the reduction of dislocation density in MQWs region rather than the decrease of polarization field. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3531957]