Calcium Impurities as Nonradiative Recombination Centers in InGaN

ORAL

Abstract

Recent experimental work [1] discovered high concentrations of Ca in the active layer of GaN-based light emitting diodes grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The presence of Ca was correlated with a significant reduction in the efficiency of light emission. We have used first-principles calculations to examine the mechanisms by which Ca causes defect-assisted nonradiative recombination, often called Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) recombination [2]. Calcium substituted on the cation site turns out to be a strong recombination center. Using hybrid density functional calculations we find that substitutional Ca acts as a deep acceptor with a level ~1 eV above the GaN valence-band maximum. Based on calculated nonradiative recombination rates we find that for Ca concentrations of 1017 cm-3, the SRH recombination coefficient A in InGaN exceeds 106 s-1 for band gaps less than 2.5 eV. A coefficients of this magnitude lead to significant reductions in the efficiency of LEDs.

[1] E. C. Young et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 109, 212103 (2016).
[2] J. X. Shen et al., Appl. Phys. Express 10, 021001 (2017).

*This work was supported by DOE.

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Presenters

  • Chris Van de Walle

    • University of California, Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, Univ of California - Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
    • Materials, Univ of California - Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, University of California - Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, University of California

Authors

  • Jimmy Shen

    • Department of Physics, University of California
    • Department of Physics, Univ of California - Santa Barbara
    • Materials, Univ of California - Santa Barbara

  • Darshana Wickramaratne

    • Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, University of California - Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, University of California
    • Electrical and computer Science engineering, University of California Riverside
    • Materials Department, Univ of California - Santa Barbara

  • Chris Van de Walle

    • University of California, Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, Univ of California - Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
    • Materials, Univ of California - Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, University of California - Santa Barbara
    • Materials Department, University of California