A graded-composition electron blocking layer (GEBL) with aluminum composition increasing along the [0001] direction was designed for c-plane InGaN/GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) by employing the band-engineering. The simulation results demonstrated that such GEBL can effectively enhance the capability of hole transportation across the EBL as well as the electron confinement. Consequently, the LED with GEBL grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition exhibited lower forward voltage and series resistance and much higher output power at high current density as compared to conventional LED. Meanwhile, the efficiency droop was reduced from 34% in conventional LED to only 4% from the maximum value at low injection current to 200 A/cm2.

In x Ga 1−x N / GaN ͑x = 0.09, 0.14, 0.24, and 0.3͒ multiple-quantum-wells ͑MQWs͒ samples, with a well width of about 4.5 nm, were achieved by utilizing r-plane sapphire substrates. Optical quality was investigated by means of photoluminescence ͑PL͒, cathodoluminescence, and time resolved PL measurements ͑TRPL͒. Two distinguishable emission peaks were examined from the low temperature PL spectra, where the high-and low-energy peaks were ascribed to quantum wells and localized states, respectively. Due to an increase in the localized energy states and absence of quantum confined Stark effect, the quantum efficiency was increased with increasing indium composition up to 24%. As the indium composition reached 30%, however, pronounced deterioration in luminescence efficiency was observed. The phenomenon could be attributed to the high defect densities in the MQWs resulted from the increased accumulation of strain between the InGaN well and GaN barrier. This argument was verified from the much shorter carrier lifetime at 15 K and smaller activation energy for In 0.3 Ga 0.7 N / GaN MQWs. In addition, the polarization-dependent PL revealed that the degree of polarization decreased with increasing indium compositions because of the enhancement of zero-dimensional nature of the localizing centers. Our detailed investigations indicate that the indium content in a-plane InGaN/GaN MQWs not only has an influence on optical performance, but is also important for further application of nitride semiconductors.

Abstract-The mechanisms of the excitation power dependent internal quantum efficiency in InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) LEDs grown on the planar and the patterned sapphire substrates (PSS) at temperature of 15 and 300 K were investigated. From observation the tendency of emission peak energy and carrier lifetime variation in MQWs with different excitation power for both LED samples, we conclude the internal quantum efficiency would increase as coulomb screening effect dominates at lower carrier injection stage and decrease due to the band-filling effect at higher density stage. At room temperature, the majority of the initial injected carriers would be first consumed by the thermal activated nonradiative centers that hinder the further achievement of high-efficiency LED devices. Experimentally, the internal quantum efficiency of the LED grown on the PSS is ∼70% and that of the LED grown on the planar sapphire substrate is ∼62%. For the LED grown on the PSS, the observed higher internal quantum efficiency is due to the larger activation energy Therefore, the reduction of dislocation defects and the prevention of injected carriers escaping from extended states would be a promising prospective for InGaN/GaN MQWs LEDs to achieve high internal quantum efficiency.

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