Quantum efficiency enhancement for GaN based light-emitting diodes and vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers

This thesis explores the improvement of quantum efficiencies for InGaN/GaN heterostructures and their applications in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). Different growth approaches and structural designs were investigated to identify and address the major factors limiting the efficiency. (1) Hot electron overflow and asymmetrical electron/hole injection were found to be the dominant reasons for efficiency degradation in nitride LEDs at high injection; (2) delta p-doped InGaN quantum barriers were employed to improve hole concentration inside the active region and therefore improve hole injection without sacrificing the layer quality; (3) InGaN active regions based on InGaN multiple double-heterostructures (DHs) were developed to understand the electron and hole recombination mechanisms and achieve high quantum efficiency and minimal efficiency droop at high injection; (4) the effect of stair-case electron injectors (SEIs) has been investigated with different active region designs and SEIs with optimized thickness greatly mitigated electron overflow without sacrificing material quality of the active regions. The active regions showing promising performance in LEDs were incorporated into VCSEL designs. Hybrid VCSEL structures with bottom semiconductor AlN/GaN and a top dielectric SiO2/SiNx DBRs have been investigated, and quality factors as high as 1300 have been demonstrated. Finally, VCSEL structures with all dielectric DBRs have been realized by employing a novel ELO-GaN growth method that allowed integration of a high quality InGaN cavity active region with a dielectric bottom DBR without removal of the substrate while forming a current aperture through the ideally dislocation-free region. The full-cavity structures formed as such exhibited quality factors 500 across the wafer.