No Arabic abstract
For nitride-based InGaN and AlGaN quantum well (QW) LEDs, the potential fluctuations caused by natural alloy disorders limit the lateral intra-QW carrier diffusion length and current spreading. The diffusion length mainly impacts the overall LED efficiency through sidewall nonradiative recombination, especially for $mu$LEDs. In this paper, we study the carrier lateral diffusion length for nitride-based green, blue, and ultraviolet C (UVC) QWs in three dimensions. We solve the Poisson and drift-diffusion equations in the framework of localization landscape theory. The full three-dimensional model includes the effects of random alloy composition fluctuations and electric fields in the QWs. The dependence of the minority carrier diffusion length on the majority carrier density is studied with a full three-dimensional model. The results show that the diffusion length is limited by the potential fluctuations and the recombination rate, the latter being controlled by the polarization-induced electric field in the QWs and by the screening of the internal electric fields by carriers.
We investigate the radiative and nonradiative recombination processes in planar (In,Ga)N/GaN(0001) quantum wells and (In,Ga)N quantum disks embedded in GaN$(000bar{1})$ nanowires using photoluminescence spectroscopy under both continuous-wave and pulsed excitation. The photoluminescence intensities of these two samples quench only slightly between 10 and 300 K, which is commonly taken as evidence for high internal quantum efficiencies. However, a side-by-side comparison shows that the absolute intensity of the Ga-polar quantum wells is two orders of magnitude higher than that of the N-polar quantum disks. A similar difference is observed for the initial decay time of photoluminescence transients obtained by time-resolved measurements, indicating the presence of a highly efficient nonradiative decay channel for the quantum disks. In apparent contradiction to this conjecture, the decay of both samples is observed to slow down dramatically after the initial rapid decay. Independent of temperature, the transients approach a power law for longer decay times, reflecting that recombination occurs between individual electrons and holes with varying spatial separation. Employing a coupled system of stochastic integro-differential equations taking into account both radiative and nonradiative Shockley-Read-Hall recombination of spatially separate electrons and holes as well as their diffusion, we obtain simulated transients matching the experimentally obtained ones. The results reveal that even dominant nonradiative recombination conserves the power law decay for (In,Ga)N/GaN{0001} quantum wells and disks.
We investigate the transport of dipolar indirect excitons along the growth plane of polar (Al,Ga)N/GaN quantum well structures by means of spatially- and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. The transport in these strongly disordered quantum wells is activated by dipole-dipole repulsion. The latter induces an emission blue shift that increases linearly with exciton density, whereas the radiative recombination rate increases exponentially. Under continuous, localized excitation, we measure a continuous red shift of the emission, as excitons propagate away from the excitation spot. This shift corresponds to a steady-state gradient of exciton density, measured over several tens of micrometers. Time-resolved micro-photoluminescence experiments provide information on the dynamics of recombination and transport of dipolar excitons. We account for the ensemble of experimental results by solving the nonlinear drift-diffusion equation. Quantitative analysis suggests that in such structures, exciton propagation on the scale of 10 to 20 microns is mainly driven by diffusion, rather than by drift, due to the strong disorder and the presence of nonradiative defects. Secondary exciton creation, most probably by the intense higher-energy luminescence, guided along the sample plane, is shown to contribute to the exciton emission pattern on the scale up to 100 microns. The exciton propagation length is strongly temperature dependent, the emission being quenched beyond a critical distance governed by nonradiative recombination.
We report on transport signatures of eight distinct bubble phases in the $N=3$ Landau level of a Al$_{x}$Ga$_{1-x}$As/Al$_{0.24}$Ga$_{0.76}$As quantum well with $x = 0.0015$. These phases occur near partial filling factors $ u^star approx 0.2,(0.8)$ and $ u^star approx 0.3,(0.7)$ and have $M = 2$ and $M = 3$ electrons (holes) per bubble, respectively. We speculate that a small amount of alloy disorder in our sample helps to distinguish these broken symmetry states in low-temperature transport measurements.
We present a detailed theoretical analysis of the electronic structure of $c$-plane InGaN/GaN quantum wells with indium contents varying between 10% and 25%. The electronic structure of the quantum wells is treated by means of an atomistic tight-binding model, accounting for variations in strain and built-in field due to random alloy fluctuations. Our analysis reveals strong localisation effects in the hole states. These effects are found not only in the ground states, but also the excited states. We conclude that localisation effects persist to of order 100~meV into the valence band, for as little as 10% indium in the quantum well, giving rise to a significant density of localised states. We find, from an examination of the modulus overlap of the wave functions, that the hole states can be divided into three regimes of localisation. Our results also show that localisation effects due to random alloy fluctuations are far less pronounced for electron states. However, the combination of electrostatic built-in field, alloy fluctuations and structural inhomogeneities, such as well-width fluctuations, can nevertheless lead to significant localisation effects in the electron states, especially at higher indium contents. Overall, our results are indicative of individually localised electron and hole states, consistent with the experimentally proposed explanation of time-dependent photoluminescence results in $c$-plane InGaN/GaN QWs.
We report on transport signatures of hidden quantum Hall stripe (hQHS) phases in high ($N > 2$) half-filled Landau levels of Al$_{x}$Ga$_{1-x}$As/Al$_{0.24}$Ga$_{0.76}$As quantum wells with varying Al mole fraction $x < 10^{-3}$. Residing between the conventional stripe phases (lower $N$) and the isotropic liquid phases (higher $N$), where resistivity decreases as $1/N$, these hQHS phases exhibit isotropic and $N$-independent resistivity. Using the experimental phase diagram we establish that the stripe phases are more robust than theoretically predicted, calling for improved theoretical treatment. We also show that, unlike conventional stripe phases, the hQHS phases do not occur in ultrahigh mobility GaAs quantum wells, but are likely to be found in other systems.