A quantitative method for determination of carrier escape efficiency in GaN-based light-emitting diodes: A comparison of open- and short-circuit photoluminescence

Abstract

We propose a method to quantitatively analyze the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) as well as the efficiencies of non-radiative recombination in the active region (NRA) and carrier escape out of the active region (ESC) by comparing open-circuit (OC) to short-circuit (SC) conditions of InGaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs). First, the IQE was extracted from excitation-power dependent photoluminescence at low temperature, and the electron-hole wavefunction overlaps were calculated under OC and SC conditions. Then, the NRA and ESC efficiencies were quantitatively deduced and also compared with photocurrent data. The proposed method would be useful for assessing and designing quantum barriers and analyzing leakage current in LEDs.