Low-Temperature Operation of Green, Blue and UV InGaN/GaN Multiple-Quantum-Well Light-Emitting Diodes

Temperature-dependent electroluminescence (EL) of InGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-well light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with peak emission energies ranging from 2.3 eV (green) to 3.3 eV (UV) has been studied over a wide temperature range (5-300 K). As the temperature is decreased from 300 K to 150 K, the EL intensity increases in all devices due to reduced nonradiative recombination and improved carrier confinement. However, LED operation at lower temperatures (150-5 K) is a strong function of In ratio in the active layer. For the green LEDs, emission intensity increases monotonically in the whole temperature range, while for the blue and UV LEDs, a remarkable decrease of the light output was observed, accompanied by a large redshift of the peak energy. The discrepancy can be attributed to various amounts of localization states caused by In composition fluctuation in the QW active regions. Based on a rate equation analysis, we find that the densities of the localized states in the green LEDs are more than two orders of magnitude higher than that in the UV LED. The large number of localized states in the green LEDs are crucial to maintain high-efficiency carrier capture at low temperatures.