Atomistic analysis of Auger recombination in c-plane (In,Ga)N/GaN quantum wells: Temperature-dependent competition between radiative and nonradiative recombination

McMahon, Joshua M.; Kioupakis, Emmanouil; Schulz, Stefan

Atomistic analysis of Auger recombination in c-plane (In,Ga)N/GaN quantum wells: Temperature-dependent competition between radiative and nonradiative recombination

Files

PhysRevB.105.195307.pdf(965.49 KB)

Published Version

Date

2022-05-12

Authors

McMahon, Joshua M.

Kioupakis, Emmanouil

Schulz, Stefan

Publisher

American Physical Society

Published Version

10.1103/PhysRevB.105.195307

Abstract

We present an atomistic theoretical study of the temperature dependence of the competition between Auger and radiative recombination in c-plane (In,Ga)N/GaN quantum wells with indium (In) contents of 10%, 15%, and 25%. The model accounts for random alloy fluctuations and the connected fluctuations in strain and built-in field. Our investigations reveal that the total Auger recombination rate exhibits a weak temperature dependence; at a temperature of 300 K and a carrier density of n3D=3.8×1018cm−3, we find total Auger coefficients in the range of ≈6×10−30cm6/s(10% In) to ≈3×10−31cm6/s (25% In), thus large enough to significantly impact the efficiency in (In,Ga)N systems. Our calculations show that the hole-hole-electron Auger rate dominates the total rate for the three In contents studied; however, the relative difference between the hole-hole-electron and electron-electron-hole contributions decreases as the In content is increased to 25%. Our studies provide further insight into the origin of the “thermal droop” (i.e., the decrease in internal quantum efficiency with increasing temperature at a fixed carrier density) in (In,Ga)N-based light-emitting diodes. We find that the ratio of radiative to nonradiative (Auger) recombination increases in the temperature range relevant to the thermal droop (≥300 K), suggesting that the competition between these processes is not driving this droop effect in c-plane (In,Ga)N/GaN quantum wells. This finding is in line with recent experimental studies.

Keywords

Atomistic theoretical study , Temperature dependence , Competition , Auger recombination , C-plane (In,Ga)N/GaN quantum wells , Radiative , Indium (In) , Thermal droop , Nonradiative

Citation

McMahon, J. M., Kioupakis, E. and Schulz, S. (2022) 'Atomistic analysis of Auger recombination in c -plane (In,Ga)N/GaN quantum wells: Temperature-dependent competition between radiative and nonradiative recombination', Physical Review B, 105, 195307 (14pp). doi: 10.1103/PhysRevB.105.195307