Monte Carlo study of non-quasiequilibrium carrier dynamics in III–N LEDs
- 191 Downloads
- 1 Citations
Abstract
Hot carrier effects have been observed in recent measurements of III–Nitride (III–N) light-emitting diodes. In this paper we carry out bipolar Monte Carlo simulations for electrons and holes in a typical III–N multi-quantum well (MQW) LED. According to our simulations, significant non-quasiequilibrium carrier distributions exist in the barrier layers of the structure. This is observed as average carrier energies much larger than the \(1.5k_BT\) corresponding to quasi-equilibrium. Due to the small potential drop over the MQW being modest, the non-quasiequilibrium carriers can be predominantly ascribed to nnp and npp Auger processes taking place in the QWs. Further investigations are needed to determine the effects of hot carriers on the macroscopic device characteristics of real devices.
Keywords
III–Nitride LEDs Monte Carlo simulations Hot carriers Non-equilibrium hole distributionNotes
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the financial support from the Nokia Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and the Aalto Energy Efficiency Research Programme.
References
- Bertazzi, F., Goano, M., Zhou, X., Calciati, M., Ghione, G., Matsubara, M., Bellotti, E.: Looking for Auger signatures in III–nitride light emitters: a full-band Monte Carlo perspective. Appl. Phys. Lett. 106, 061112 (2015)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Binder, M., Nirschl, A., Zeisel, R., Hager, T., Lugauer, H.-J., Sabathil, M., Bougeard, D., Wagner, J., Galler, B.: Identification of nnp and npp Auger recombination as significant contributor to the efficiency droop in (GaIn)N quantum wells by visualization of hot carriers in photoluminescence. Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 071108 (2013)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Deppner, M., Römer, F., Witzigmann, B.: Auger carrier leakage in III–nitride quantum-well light emitting diodes. Phys. Status Solidi RRL 6, 418–420 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Heikkilä, O., Oksanen, J., Tulkki, J.: Ultimate limit and temperature dependency of light-emitting diode efficiency. J. Appl. Phys. 105, 093119 (2009)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Iveland, J., Piccardo, M., Martinelli, L., Peretti, J., Choi, J.W., Young, N., Nakamura, S., Speck, J.S., Weisbuch, C.: Origin of electrons emitted into vacuum from InGaN light emitting diodes. Appl. Phys. Lett. 105, 052103 (2014)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Jacoboni, C., Reggiani, L.: The Monte Carlo method for the solution of charge transport in semiconductors with applications to covalent materials. Rev. Mod. Phys. 55, 645 (1983)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Kivisaari, P., Oksanen, J., Tulkki, J.: Polarization doping and the efficiency of III–nitride optoelectronic devices. Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 211118 (2013)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Kivisaari, P., Oksanen, J., Tulkki, J., Sadi, T.: Monte Carlo simulation of hot carrier transport in III–N LEDs. J. Comput. Electron. 14, 382–397 (2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Kivisaari, P., Oksanen, J., Tulkki, J., Sadi, T.: Bipolar Monte Carlo simulation of electrons and holes in III–N LEDs. Proc. SPIE 9363, 93631S (2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Li, Z.M.S.: Non-local transport in numerical simulation of GaN LED. J. Comput. Electron. 14, 409–415 (2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Nakamura, S., Krames, M.: History of Gallium–Nitride-based light-emitting diodes for illumination. Proc. IEEE 101, 2211–2220 (2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Piprek, J.: How to decide between competing efficiency droop models for GaN-based light-emitting diodes. Appl. Phys. Lett. 107, 031101 (2015)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Piprek, J., Römer, F., Witzigmann, B.: On the uncertainty of the Auger recombination coefficient extracted from InGaN/GaN light-emitting diode efficiency droop measurements. Appl. Phys. Lett. 106, 101101 (2015)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Römer, F., Witzigmann, B.: Acceptor impurity activation in III–nitride light emitting diodes. Appl. Phys. Lett. 106, 021107 (2015)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Ridley, B.K.: Quantum Processes in Semiconductors. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1999)Google Scholar
- Sadi, T., Kelsall, R.W., Pilgrim, N.J.: Investigation of self-heating effects in submicrometer GaN/AlGaN HEMTs using an electrothermal Monte Carlo method. IEEE Trans. Electron. Dev. 53, 2892–2900 (2006)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Sadi, T., Kelsall, R.W.: Hot-phonon effect on the electrothermal behavior of submicrometer III–V HEMTs. IEEE Electron. Device Lett. 28, 787–789 (2007)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Sadi, T., Kivisaari, P., Oksanen, J., Tulkki, J.: On the correlation of the Auger generated hot electron emission and efficiency droop in III–N light-emitting diodes. Appl. Phys. Lett. 105, 091106 (2014)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar
- Sadi, T., Kivisaari, P., Oksanen, J., Tulkki, J.: Microscopic simulation of hot electron transport in III–N light-emitting diodes. Opt. Quantum Electron. 47, 1509–1518 (2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Yang, T.-J., Shivaraman, R., Speck, J.S., Wu, Y.-R.: The influence of random indium alloy fluctuations in indium gallium nitride quantum wells on the device behavior. J. Appl. Phys. 116, 113104 (2014)CrossRefADSGoogle Scholar