Suppression of nonradiative recombination by V-shaped pits in GaInN/GaN quantum wells produces a large increase in the light emission efficiency

Abstract

Despite the high density of threading dislocations generally found in (AlGaIn)N heterostructures, the light emission efficiency of such structures is exceptionally high. It has become common to attribute the high efficiency to compositional fluctuations or even phase separation in the active GaInN quantum well region. The resulting localization of charge carriers is thought to keep them from recombining nonradiatively at the defects. Here, we show that random disorder is not the key but that under suitable growth conditions hexagonal V-shaped pits decorating the defects exhibit narrow sidewall quantum wells with an effective band gap significantly larger than that of the regular c-plane quantum wells. Thereby nature provides a unique, hitherto unrecognized mechanism generating a potential landscape which effectively screens the defects themselves by providing an energy barrier around every defect.