Swift heavy ion irradiation puts InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells on the way for efficient green light emission

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Mamour Sall,

CIMAP (CEA, CNRS, ENSICAEN, Univ. Caen), France

The nitride semiconductors, (Al,Ga,In) N present remarkable optical and electronic properties. They have been widely used for optoelectronic applications with high-efficiency blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
based on InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (MQW) structures [1]. Emission at higher wavelength, for instance in the green, could be obtained by increasing the concentration of indium but with a strong
quantum-confined Stark effect due to piezoelectric polarization [2]. To mitigate this effect, we created atomic intermixing at the InGaN/GaN MQW by using Swift Heavy Ion (SHI) irradiation. The resulting
chemical composition gradient has been suggested to improve the MQW emission efficiency [3].
Through a careful combination of well-chosen energies SHI irradiation and low temperature thermal treatment, either during or after irradiation, we successfully created a compositional gradient at the MQWs
interfaces while preserving the material luminescence.

References:
[1] S. Nakamura et al., Japanese J. Appl. Physics, Part 2 Lett., vol. 35, no. 1 B, p. L74, Jan. 1996
[2] S. P. Denbaars et al., Acta Mater., vol. 61, no. 3, pp. 945–951, Feb. 2013
[3] K. P. O’Donnell et al., Phys. Status Solidi – Rapid Res. Lett., vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 49–52, 2012