We report on the successful nano-fabrication and characterization of III-nitride blue and ultraviolet (UV) photonic crystal light emitting diodes (PC-LEDs) using electron beam lithography and inductively coupled plasma dry etching. Triangular arrays of holes with different diameters/periodicities were etched on the LEDs. Optical measurements on the photonic crystals (PCs) performed using near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) showed a 60° periodic variation with the angle between the propagation direction of emission light and the PCs lattice. Under optical pumping, an unprecedented enhancement factor of 20 in emission light intensity of wavelength 475 nm was achieved at room temperature with emission light parallel to the Γ-K direction of the PCs lattice. Guided by the optical pumping results, new design geometry of LEDs with PCs has been employed to optimize the light extraction. Enhancement in optical power of current injected blue and UV PC-LEDs over conventional LEDs is discussed. It was observed that the optical enhancement factor depends strongly on the PC lattice constant and hole size. The achievement of nitride photonic crystal emitters with enhanced light extraction efficiency is expected to benefit many new applications of III-nitrides including solid-state lighting for general illumination and photonic integrated circuits operating in the visible and UV spectral regions.
Mg doped Al-rich AlGaN epilayers with Al content as high as 0.7 is needed for obtaining deep UV LEDs with wavelengths shorter than 300 nm. This is one of the most crucial layers in deep UV LEDs and plays an important role for electron blocking and affects the hole injection into the active layer. Not only is this layer critical for the efficiency of deep UV LEDs, it could also introduce long wavelength emission components in UV LEDs. However, it is difficult to obtain high quality Mg doped Al-rich AlGaN epilayers and the resistivity of the grown films is usually extremely high. We report here on the growth, optical and electrical properties of Mg doped Al0.7Ga0.3N epilayers. Mg doped Al0.7Ga0.3N epilayers of high crystalline and optical qualities have been achieved after optimizing MOCVD growth conditions. Moreover, we have obtained a resistivity around 12,000 Ω cm (near the theoretical limit with Mg doping) at room temperature and confirmed p-type conduction at elevated temperatures for optimized Mg-doped Al0.7Ga0.3N epilayers. The growth conditions of the optimized epilayer have been incorporated into deep UV LEDs with wavelength shorter than 300 nm. A significant enhancement in power output with a reduction in forward voltage, Vf, was obtained by employing this optimized Mg doped Al0.7Ga0.3N epilayer as an electron blocking layer. The long wavelength emission components in deep UV LEDs were also significantly suppressed. The fundamental limit for achieving p-type Al-rich AlGaN alloys is also discussed.
Field-induced electron transport in an InxGa1-xN (x≅0.4) sample grown on GaN has been studied by subpicosecond Raman spectroscopy. Non-equilibrium electron distribution and electron drift velocity due to the presence of piezoelectric and spontaneous fields in the InxGa1-xN layer have been directly measured. The experimental results are compared with ensemble Monte Carlo calculations and reasonable agreements are obtained.
Si-doped n-type AlxGa1MINxN alloys with x up to 0.5 and Mg-doped p-type AlxGa1-xN alloys with x up to 0.27 were grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on sapphire substrates. For the n-type AlxGa1-xN, we achieved highly conductive alloys for x up to 0.5. An electron concentration as high as 1x1018cm-3 was obtained in Si-doped Al0.5Ga0.5N alloys with an electron mobility of 16 cm$_2)Vs at room temperature, as confirmed by Hall-effect measurements. Our results also revealed that the conductivity of AlxGa1-xN alloys continuously increases with an increase of Si doping level for a fixed value of Al content (X<0.5), the conductivities of AlxGa1-xN alloys decrease with increasing Al content for a given doping level; the critical Si-doping concentration needed to convert insulating AlxGa$1-x)N with high Al contents (X>=0.4) to n- type conductivity is about 1 x 1018cm-3. Time- resolved photoluminescence studies carried out on these materials have shown that Si-doping reduces the effect of carrier localization in AlxGa1-xN alloys and a sharp drop in carrier localization energy occurs when the Si doping concentration increases above 1x1018cm-3, which directly correlates with the observed electrical properties. For the Mg-doped AlxGa1-xN alloys, p-type conduction was achieved for x up to 0.27, as confirmed by variable temperature Hall measurements. Emission lines of band-to-impurity transitions of free electrons with neutral Mg acceptors as well as localized excitons have been observed in the p-type AlxGa1-xN alloys. The Mg acceptor activation energies EA were deduces from photoluminescence spectra and were found to increase with Al content and agreed very well with those obtained by Hall measurements. From the measured activation energy as a function of Al content, EA versus x, the resistivity of Mg-doped AlxGa1-x with high Al contents can be deduced. Our results have also shown that PL measurements provide direct means of obtaining EA especially where this cannot be obtained accurately by electrical methods due to high resistance of p-type AlxGa1-xN with high Al content.
InxAlyGa1-xN quaternary alloys with different In and Al composites were grown on sapphire substrates with GaN buffer by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. Optical properties of these quaternary alloys were studied by picosecond time-resolved photoluminescence. Our studies have revealed that InxAlyGa1-xN quaternary alloys with lattice matched with GaN (y approximately 4.7x) have the highest optical quality. More importantly, we can achieve not only higher emission energies but also higher emission intensities (or quantum efficiencies) in InxAlyGa1-x-yN quaternary alloys than that of GaN.
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