The Influence of V-Defects, Leakage, and Random Alloy Fluctuations on the Carrier Transport in Red InGaN MQW LEDs

TL;DR

This paper investigates how V-defects, leakage, and alloy fluctuations affect carrier transport in red InGaN MQW LEDs, revealing complex interactions that influence device efficiency and forward voltage.

Contribution

It introduces dislocation-induced tail states into modeling to explain leakage currents and their impact on red InGaN LED performance, a novel approach for this context.

Findings

Leakage currents are significant below turn-on voltage due to tail states.

V-defects create alternative carrier injection paths, but less effective in red LEDs.

Dislocation tail states can reduce forward voltage but increase nonradiative recombination.

Abstract

Red InGaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) exhibit lower internal quantum efficiencies (IQEs) than violet, blue, and green InGaN LEDs due to a reduction in radiative recombination rates relative to non-radiative recombination rates as the indium composition increases. Additionally, the larger polarization and band offset barriers between high indium content InGaN quantum wells and GaN quantum barriers increase the forward voltage. In blue and green LEDs, random alloy fluctuations and V-defects play a key role in reducing the forward voltage. When V-defects are present, either naturally or intentionally introduced, they create an alternative path for carrier injection into the MQWs through the V-defect sidewalls. This injection mechanism explains the turn-on voltages of green LEDs. However, in InGaN red LEDs, these two phenomena do not reduce the forward voltage as effectively as in blue and green LEDs, and consequently, the computed forward voltage remains significantly higher than the measured one. Furthermore, currents are observed at low voltages before the turn-on voltage (\(V < \hbar\omega/e = 2.0 \, \text{V}\)) of red LEDs. To address this, we introduce dislocation-induced tail states in the modeling, suggesting that leakage current through these states may play a significant role both below and at turn-on voltages. The simulation also indicates that leakage carriers below turn-on accumulate, partially diffuse in the QWs, screen the polarization-induced barrier in the low injection regime, and further reduce the forward voltage. Despite these beneficial effects, a drawback of dislocation-induced tail states is the enhanced nonradiative recombination in the dislocation line region. This study provides a detailed analysis of device injection physics in InGaN QW red LEDs and outlines potential optimization strategies.