Solid state UV emitters have many advantages over conventional UV sources. The (Al,In,Ga)N material system is best suited to produce LEDs and laser diodes from 400 nm down to 210 nm—due to its large and tuneable direct band gap, n- and p-doping capability up to the largest bandgap material AlN and a growth and fabrication technology compatible with the current visible InGaN-based LED production. However AlGaN based UV-emitters still suffer from numerous challenges compared to their visible counterparts that become most obvious by consideration of their light output power, operation voltage and long term stability. Most of these challenges are related to the large bandgap of the materials. However, the development since the first realization of UV electroluminescence in the 1970s shows that an improvement in understanding and technology allows the performance of UV emitters to be pushed far beyond the current state. One example is the very recent realization of edge emitting laser diodes emitting in the UVC at 271.8 nm and in the UVB spectral range at 298 nm. This roadmap summarizes the current state of the art for the most important aspects of UV emitters, their challenges and provides an outlook for future developments.

III-nitride light-emitting diodes (LEDs) suffer from a severe efficiency reduction with increasing injection current (droop). Auger recombination is often seen as primary cause of this droop phenomenon. The corresponding Auger recombination coefficient C is typically obtained from efficiency measurements using mathematical models. However, C coefficients reported for InGaN active layers vary over two orders of magnitude. We here investigate this uncertainty and apply successively more accurate models to the same efficiency measurement, thereby revealing the strong sensitivity of the Auger coefficient to quantum well properties such as electron-hole ratio, electric field, and hot carrier escape. V

Vertically aligned gallium nitride (GaN) nanowire (NW) arrays have attracted a lot of attention because of their potential for novel devices in the fields of optoelectronics and nanoelectronics. In this work, GaN NW arrays have been designed and fabricated by combining suitable nanomachining processes including dry and wet etching. After inductively coupled plasma dry reactive ion etching, the GaN NWs are subsequently treated in wet chemical etching using AZ400K developer (i.e., with an activation energy of 0.69 ± 0.02 eV and a Cr mask) to form hexagonal and smooth a-plane sidewalls. Etching experiments using potassium hydroxide (KOH) water solution reveal that the sidewall orientation preference depends on etchant concentration. A model concerning surface bonding configuration on crystallography facets has been proposed to understand the anisotropic wet etching mechanism. Finally, NW array-based vertical field-effect transistors with wrap-gated structure have been fabricated. A device composed of 99 NWs exhibits enhancement mode operation with a threshold voltage of 1.5 V, a superior electrostatic control, and a high current output of >10 mA, which prevail potential applications in next-generation power switches and high-temperature digital circuits.

In this theoretical study, we investigate both electronic and optical properties of core–shell InGaN nanorods (NRs) for light emitting diodes (LEDs). These structures feature active layers wrapped around high aspect ratio NR cores, thus allowing for an enormous increase in active area. Hence, efficiency may be increased by operating at lower carrier densities, mitigating efficiency droop known to limit conventional InGaN LEDs. Due to poor conductivity of the outer pGaN shell, current spreading along the entire NR length is challenging and requires an additional cover of transparent conductive oxide in order to fully exploit the active area. At the same time, quantum wells (QWs) on core–shell NRs are grown on m‐plane rather than conventional c‐plane GaN facets. The calculations show that the absence of piezoelectric fields on these non‐polar facets results in strong reabsorption of the emitted photons. A comprehensive numerical model is applied, linking internal quantum efficiency (IQE) and light extraction via the process of photon recycling. In summary, increasing optical absorption and photon recycling losses limit extraction efficiency. While this partially compensates the gain in IQE with increasing active area, a net improvement of the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of +10% is achievable by the proposed design of a novel core–shell NR LED.

Auger induced leakage is shown to be a contributing factor for the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) droop in III‐nitride quantum‐well light emitting diodes (LEDs). The mechanism is based on leakage current from carrier spill‐out of the well originating from energy transfer during Auger recombination. Adding this leakage reduces the Auger coefficient by 50% when compared to a standard Auger model with cubic density dependence. As reference, experimental data of a green quantum‐well LED are taken. Direct leakage due to non‐ideal carrier capture and re‐emission out of the well affects the IQE at current densities much larger than the maximum IQE point. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)