Bipolar Monte Carlo simulation of electrons and holes in III-N LEDs

Abstract

Recent measurements have generated a need to better understand the physics of hot carriers in III-Nitride (III-N) lightemitting diodes (LEDs) and in particular their relation to the efficiency droop and current transport. In this article we present fully self-consistent bipolar Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of carrier transport for detailed modeling of charge transport in III-N LEDs. The simulations are performed for a prototype LED structure to study the effects of hot holes and to compare predictions given by the bipolar MC model, the previously introduced hybrid Monte Carlo–drift-diffusion (MCDD) model, and the conventional drift-diffusion (DD) model. The predictions given by the bipolar MC model and the MCDD model are observed to be almost equivalent for the studied LED. Therefore our simulations suggest that hot holes do not significantly contribute to the basic operation of multi-quantum well LEDs, at least within the presently simulated range of material parameters. With the added hole transport simulation capabilities and fully self-constistent simulations, the bipolar Monte Carlo model provides a state-of-the-art tool to study the fine details of electron and hole dynamics in realistic LED structures. Further analysis of the results for a variety of LED structures will therefore be very useful in studying and optimizing the efficiency and current transport in next-generation LEDs.