Optical and crystal quality improvement in green emitting InxGa1-xN multi-quantum wells through optimization of MOCVD growth

Abstract

We report on green-emitting In0.18Ga0.82N/GaN multi-quantum well (MQW) structures over a variety of metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) growth conditions to examine the morphology, optical quality, and micron-scale emission properties. The MOCVD growth parameter space was analyzed utilizing two orthogonal metrics which allows comparing and optimizing growth conditions over a wide range of process parameters: effective gas speed, S*, and effective V/III ratio, V/III*. Optimized growth conditions with high V/III, low gas speed, and slow growth rates resulted in improved crystal quality, PL emission efficiency, and micron-scale wavelength uniformity. One of the main challenges in green MQWs with high Indium content is the formation of Indium inclusion type defects due to the large lattice mismatch combined with the miscibility gap between GaN and InN. An effective way of eliminating Indium inclusions was demonstrated by introducing a small fraction of H 2 (2.7%) in the gas composition during the growth of high temperature GaN quantum barriers. In addition, the positive effects of employing an InGaN/GaN superlattice (SL) underlayer to crystal quality and micron-scale emission uniformity was demonstrated, which is of special interest for applications such as micro-LEDs.