Influence of barrier thickness on the structural and optical properties of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/23/5/054211

Abstract The structural and optical properties of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) with different barrier thicknesses are studied by means of high resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD), a cross-sectional transmission electron microscope (TEM), and temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) measurements. HRXRD and cross-sectional TEM measurements show that the interfaces between wells and barriers are abrupt and the entire MQW region has good periodicity for all three samples. As the barrier thickness is increased, the temperature of the turning point from blueshift to redshift of the S-shaped temperature-dependent PL peak energy increases monotonously, which indicates that the localization potentials due to In-rich clusters is deeper. From the Arrhenius plot of the normalized integrated PL intensity, it is found that there are two kinds of nonradiative recombination processes accounting for the thermal quenching of photoluminescence, and the corresponding activation energy (or the localization potential) increases with the increase of the barrier thickness. The dependence on barrier thickness is attributed to the redistribution of In-rich clusters during the growth of barrier layers, i.e., clusters with lower In contents aggregate into clusters with higher In contents.

Keywords: InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells barrier thickness thermal quenching localization potential

Received: 12 August 2013
Revised: 16 October 2013
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:	42.70.-a	(Optical materials)
	78.20.-e	(Optical properties of bulk materials and thin films)
	78.40.Pg	(Disordered solids)
	78.66.Fd	(III-V semiconductors)

Fund: Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61106044 and 61274052), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Grant No. 20110121110029), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 2013121024), and the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China (Grant No. 2013J05096).

Corresponding Authors: Zhang Jiang-Yong, Zhang Bao-Ping
E-mail: jyzhang2010@xmu.edu.cn;bzhang@xmu.edu.cn

About author: 42.70.-a; 78.20.-e; 78.40.Pg; 78.66.Fd

Cite this article:

Liang Ming-Ming (梁明明), Weng Guo-En (翁国恩), Zhang Jiang-Yong (张江勇), Cai Xiao-Mei (蔡晓梅), Lü Xue-Qin (吕雪芹), Ying Lei-Ying (应磊莹), Zhang Bao-Ping (张保平) Influence of barrier thickness on the structural and optical properties of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells 2014 Chin. Phys. B 23 054211

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Influence of barrier thickness on the structural and optical properties of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells

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