Tunnel Junction Enhanced Nanowire Ultraviolet Light Emitting Diodes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that integrating polarization engineered tunnel junctions in nanowire UV LEDs significantly reduces turn-on voltage, enhances efficiency, and enables potential monolithic multi-junction integration on silicon.

Contribution

The study introduces the integration of polarization engineered tunnel junctions in nanowire UV LEDs, achieving reduced voltage and improved efficiency, advancing nanowire LED technology.

Findings

~6V reduction in turn-on voltage

External quantum efficiency of 4-6% at 310 nm

Over 100 microwatts of UV emission

Abstract

Polarization engineered interband tunnel junctions (TJs) are integrated in nanowire ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LEDs). A ~6V reduction in turn-on voltage is achieved by the integration of tunnel junction at the base of polarization doped nanowire UV LEDs. Moreover, efficient hole injection into the nanowire LEDs leads to suppressed efficiency droop in TJ integrated nanowire LEDs. The combination of both reduced bias voltage and increased hole injection increases the wall plug efficiency in these devices. More than 100 microwatts of UV emission at ~310 nm is measured with external quantum efficiency in the range of 4 - 6 m%. The realization of tunnel junction within the nanowire LEDs opens a pathway towards the monolithic integration of cascaded multi-junction nanowire LEDs on silicon.