Jin Seo Im

Radiative carrier lifetime, momentum matrix element, and hole effective mass in GaN

By using picosecond time-resolved photoluminescence we have measured the lifetime of excess charge carriers in GaN epitaxial layers grown on sapphire at temperatures up to 300 K. The decay time turns out to be dominated by trapping processes at low excitation levels. The radiative lifetime derived from our data is dominated by free excitons at temperatures below 150 K, but also clearly shows the gradual thermal dissociation of excitons at higher temperatures. From our data, we are able to determine the free exciton binding energy and the free carrier radiative recombination coefficient. By combining these data with optical absorption data, we find the interband momentum matrix element and an estimate for the hole effective mass, which is much larger than previously thought.

The role of piezoelectric fields in GaN-based quantum wells

In this contribution, we focus on the consequences of the piezoelectric field, which is an inherent consequence of the commonly used wurtzite phase of GaN, on the optical properties of strained GaN-based quantum well structures. We demonstrate that both in GaN/AlGaN and in GaInN/GaN single quantum well structures, the piezoelectric field leads to a Stark-shift of the fundamental optical transitions, which can lead to luminescence emission far below the bulk bandgap. Due to the spatial separation of the electron and hole wavefunctions in such structures, the oscillator strength of these transitions may become extremely small, many orders of magnitude lower than in the field-free case. From specially designed structures, we can even determine the sign of the piezoelectric field and relate it to the polarity of the layers. Under high-excitation conditions, as found in a laser diode, the piezoelectric field is almost completely screened by the injected carriers. As a consequence, the stimulated emission is significantly blue-shifted compared to the photoluminescence, which has sometimes been confused with localization effects.

Intra- and interwell transitions in GaInN/GaN multiple quantum wells with built-in piezoelectric fields

We have studied optical transitions in GaInN/GaN single and multiple quantum wells using time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. Our results show that the energy positions of the dominant emission lines strongly depend both on the well width and on the number of wells. In the case of multiple quantum wells, time-resolved measurements clearly distinguish multiple emission lines. These observations are consistently explained by considering the large built-in piezoelectric field in strained GaInN quantum wells. The multiple emission lines are attributed to intra- and interwell transitions between nearest and next-nearest neighbors.

Optical Properties of Nitride Quantum Wells: How to Separate Fluctuations and Polarization Field Effects

Both the large linewidth of optical transitions as well as the sizeable “Stokes” shift seem to suggest strong localization effects in nitride quantum wells. In contrast, we clearly show that the “Stokes” shift can be easily understood in terms of the huge piezoelectric fields present in such structures. At the same time, those fields lead to a characteristic dependence of the linewidth on well width, which we use to quantitatively separate fluctuation and field effects. We find that in high-quality quantum wells, the relative compositional fluctuation is less than 10% and the well width fluctuation is of the order 1 monolayer.

In incorporation efficiency and composition fluctuations in MOVPE grown GaInN/GaN hetero structures and quantum wells

Abstract GaInN layers play a key role in short wavelength optoelectronic devices for the visible spectrum. However, the epitaxial growth of In containing nitrides is more problematic than that of GaN and AlGaN. In order to increase the In incorporation efficiency, lower growth temperatures of around 700–800°C are needed. We have optimized the metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxial growth of GaInN by decreasing the H2/N2 ratio in the gas-phase and increasing the growth rate. However, the deposited films showed strong indications for compositional fluctuations. Besides a large miscibility gap predicted for GaInN, the mismatch induced strain for GaN may play a major role in these growth problems.

Effects of Piezoelectric Fields in GaInN/GaN and GaN/AlGaN Heterostructures and Quantum Wells

The effects of piezoelectric fields on the static and dynamic optical properties of GaInN/GaN and GaN/AIGaN double heterostructures and single quantum wells are studied by time-resolved photoluminescence. We find a strong increase of the luminescence decay time of the dominating transition with well thickness by several orders of magnitude. For well thicknesses larger than about 5 nm, two emission lines with strongly differing decay times are observed, which are attributed to spatially direct and indirect transitions. Our experimental findings are consistently explained by a quantitative model based on the piezoelectric fields in strained wurtzite quantum wells.

GaInN/GaN-Heterostructures and Quantum Wells Grown by Metalorganic Vapor-Phase Epitaxy

The dependence of the In-incorporation efficiency and the optical properties of MOVPE-grown GaInN/GaN-heterostructures on various growth parameters has been investigated. A significant improvement of the In-incorporation rate could be obtained by increasing the growth rate and reducing the H 2 -partial pressure in the MOVPE reactor. However, GaInN layers with a high In-content typically show an additional low energy photoluminescence peak, whose distance to the band-edge increases with increasing In-content. For GaInN/GaN quantum wells with an In-content of approximately 12%, an increase of the well thickness is accompanied by a significant line broadening and a large increase of the Stokes shift between the emission peak and the band edge determined by photothermal deflection spectroscopy. With a further increase of the thickness of the GaInN layer, a second GaInN-correlated emission peak emerges. To elucidate the nature of these optical transitions, power-dependent as well as time-resolved photoluminescence measurements have been performed and compared to the results of scanning transmission electron microscopy.

Metalorganic vapor phase epitaxial growth of GaInN/GaN hetero structures and quantum wells

GaInN/GaN heterostructures and quantum wells have been grown by low pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy on sapphire using an AIN nucleation layer. We found a significant In incorporation only for growth temperatures of 700°C, although still very high In/Ga ratios in the gas phase had to be adjusted. The In content could be increased by reducing the H2/N2 flow ratio in the main carrier gas. GaInN layers typically show two lines in low temperature photoluminescence which are identified as excitonic-like (high energy peak) and impurity-related-like (low energy) by time-resolved spectroscopy. Quantum wells with a thickness between 8 and 0.5 nm showed only one emission line. The peak of the thinnest wells shows excitonic-like behaviour, whereas we found a smooth transition to an impurity-related-like type with increasing thickness. By scanning transmission electron microscopy studies we found indications for composition fluctuations in these thicker quantum wells which may cause localization effects for the excitons and thus be responsible for the observed optical spectra.

Radiative Lifetime of Excitons in GaInN/GaN Quantum Wells

We have studied GaInN/GaN quantum well structures grown by LP-MOVPE by picosecond time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. For the quantum wells we find rather long PL decay times of up to 600 ps at low temperature. At temperatures higher than about 100 K, the decay time decreases rapidly, reaching about 75 ps at room temperature. From measurements of the integrated PL intensity, we conclude that this decrease of the decay time is due to nonradiative recombination processes. By combining our data for the lifetime and the intensity, we derive the radiative lifetime, which is constant at low temperature and increases at elevated temperatures. We explain this behavior on the basis of the interface roughness at low temperature and thermal dissociation of excitons at higher temperatures.

Carrier confinement in GaInN/AlGaN/GaN quantum wells with asymmetric barriers : direction of the piezoelectric field

Abstract We present time-resolved measurements on GaInN/GaN quantum wells (QWs) with varying well widths and GaInN/AlGaN/GaN QWs with asymmetric barriers. Our study in GaInN/GaN QWs shows a strong decrease of oscillator strength with increasing well widths in parallel to a red shift of emission peaks, which can be well explained by the piezoelectric field. The measurement in the asymmetric structure reveals enhanced oscillator strength with the AlGaN barrier on top of the GaInN QW indicating the better carrier confinement in such structure. These results allow us to determine unambiguously the sign of the piezoelectric field, which points towards the substrate in a compressively strained QW.