Electric field dependence of radiative recombination lifetimes in polar InGaN/GaN quantum heterostructures

Abstract

We report on external electric field dependence of recombination lifetimes in polar InGaN/GaN quantum heterostructures. In our study, we apply external electric fields one order of magnitude less than and in opposite direction to the polarization-induced electrostatic fields inside the well layers. Under the increasing external electric field, we observe a decrease in carrier lifetimes (τ) and radiative recombination lifetimes (τr), latter showing a weaker dependence. Our results on τr show an agreement with our transfer matrix method based simulation results and demonstrate Fermi's golden rule in polar InGaN/GaN quantum heterostructures dependent on electric field. For our study, we grew 5 pairs of 2.5 nm thick In0.15Ga 0.85N quantum well and 7.5 nm thick GaN barrier layers in a p-i-n diode architecture using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on a c-plane sapphire substrate. Devices with 300 μm × 300 μm mesa size were fabricated using standard photolithography, reactive ion etching and metallization steps. We used indium-tin oxide (ITO) based semi-transparent contacts in top (p-GaN) layer for uniform application of electric field across the well layers. The fabricated devices were diced and mounted on a TO-can for compact testing. © 2009 IEEE.