Electrical injection to contactless near-surface InGaN quantum well

Charge injection to the prevailing and emerging light-emitting devices is almost exclusively based on the double heterojunction (DHJ) structures that have remained essentially unchanged for decades. In this letter, we report the excitation of a near surface indium gallium nitride (InGaN) quantum wel...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2015-08, Vol.107 (5)
Main Authors: Riuttanen, L., Kivisaari, P., Svensk, O., Oksanen, J., Suihkonen, S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied physics
Charge injection
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
Diodes
Electric contacts
Emitters
EXCITATION
GALLIUM NITRIDES
HETEROJUNCTIONS
Homojunctions
Indium gallium nitrides
LAYERS
NANOWIRES
OPTICAL PUMPING
QUANTUM EFFICIENCY
QUANTUM WELLS
SURFACES
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Summary:Charge injection to the prevailing and emerging light-emitting devices is almost exclusively based on the double heterojunction (DHJ) structures that have remained essentially unchanged for decades. In this letter, we report the excitation of a near surface indium gallium nitride (InGaN) quantum well (QW) by bipolar carrier diffusion from a nearby electrically excited pn-homojunction. The demonstrated near surface QW emitter is covered only by a 10 nm GaN capping leaving the light-emitting mesa perfectly free of metals, other contact, or current spreading structures. The presented proof-of-principle structure, operating approximately with a quantum efficiency of one fifth of a conventional single QW reference structure, provides conclusive evidence of the feasibility of using diffusion injection to excite near surface light-emitting structures needed, e.g., for developing light emitters or photo-voltaic devices based on nanoplasmonics or free-standing nanowires. In contrast to the existing DHJ solutions or optical pumping, our approach allows exciting nanostructures without the need of forming a DHJ, absorbing layers or even electrical contacts on the device surface.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.4928248