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Carrier distribution characteristics of AlGaN-based ultraviolet light-emitting diodes at elevated temperatures

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Abstract

We studied the electrical and optical properties of 276 nm and 306 nm AlGaN-based ultraviolet light emitting diodes (UV-LEDs) in the temperature range of 303–403 K. Capacitance–voltage measurements were performed to extract the carrier distribution in UV-LED, especially around the multi-quantum well structure. Our results showed that an additional carrier concentration peak close to the first quantum well of the p-n junction was present at elevated temperatures. Our physical simulation 276 nm LEDs revealed the cause of the concentration change to be the higher stress of the barrier layer with the temperature increase which introduced additional piezoelectric charge at the heterostructure interfaces. It is also found that the electron barrier layer (EBL) acceptor concentration decreased with the temperature, which caused a shift in the carrier concentration peak position, corresponding to higher EBL contribution to the increase of depletion width in the UV-LED. Higher temperatures lead to the increase of polarization charge at the quantum barrier/EBL interface, associated with downward bending of the conduction band of the quantum barrier, which is possibly the reason for an additional carrier concentration peak. The variation of the carrier distribution in UV-LED with temperature provides a new perspective and method to explain the UV-LED thermal droop effect.

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Funding

This work was supported financially by the fund for Bagui Talent of Guangxi Province (Nos. T3120097921 and T3120099202), Talent Model Base (AD19110157), Guangxi Science and Technology Program (AD19245132), Guangxi University Foundation (A3120051010), and Disinfection Robot Based on High Power AlGaN-based UVLEDs (No. BB31200014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center of Optoelectronic Information Research, Guangxi Key Laboratory for the Relativistic Astrophysics, School of Physical Science & Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, People’s Republic of China

    Zhiqiang Chen, Shaodong Deng, Min Li, Mengwei Su, Xinglin Zhu, Yukun Wang, Ziqian Chen, Jianyu Deng, Lianshan Wang & Wenhong Sun

  2. Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials Science, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Lianshan Wang

  3. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Processing for Non-Ferrous Metallic and Featured Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, People’s Republic of China

    Wenhong Sun

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  1. Zhiqiang Chen
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by ZC, WS, JD and LW. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ZC and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jianyu Deng, Lianshan Wang or Wenhong Sun.

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Chen, Z., Deng, S., Li, M. et al. Carrier distribution characteristics of AlGaN-based ultraviolet light-emitting diodes at elevated temperatures. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 17395–17403 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-08621-y

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