Quantum Mechanical Modeling of Nanoscale Light Emitting Diodes

TL;DR

This paper develops a quantum mechanical model for nanoscale LED electroluminescence, incorporating electromagnetic interactions, and demonstrates its application through simulations of silicon nanowire LEDs, revealing emission spectra and photon properties.

Contribution

A novel quantum mechanical modeling framework for nanoscale LED electroluminescence that includes electromagnetic interactions and enables detailed emission analysis.

Findings

Simulated EL spectra under various biases.

Determined photon propagation and polarization.

Validated model with silicon nanowire LED data.

Abstract

Understanding of the electroluminescence (EL) mechanism in optoelectronic devices is important for further optimization of their efficiency and effectiveness. Here, a quantum mechanical approach is formulated for modeling EL processes in nanoscale light emitting diodes (LED). Based on nonequilibrium Green's function quantum transport equations, interactions with electromagnetic vacuum environment is included to describe electrically driven light emission in the devices. Numerical studies of a silicon nanowire LED device are presented. EL spectra of the nanowire device under different bias voltages are simulated and, more importantly, propagation and polarization of emitted photon can be determined using the current approach.