The effects of piezoelectric fields on the static and dynamic optical properties of GaInN/GaN and GaN/AIGaN double heterostructures and single quantum wells are studied by time-resolved photoluminescence. We find a strong increase of the luminescence decay time of the dominating transition with well thickness by several orders of magnitude. For well thicknesses larger than about 5 nm, two emission lines with strongly differing decay times are observed, which are attributed to spatially direct and indirect transitions. Our experimental findings are consistently explained by a quantitative model based on the piezoelectric fields in strained wurtzite quantum wells.

In this contribution, we focus on the consequences of the piezoelectric field, which is an inherent consequence of the commonly used wurtzite phase of GaN, on the optical properties of strained GaN-based quantum well structures. We demonstrate that both in GaN/AlGaN and in GaInN/GaN single quantum well structures, the piezoelectric field leads to a Stark-shift of the fundamental optical transitions, which can lead to luminescence emission far below the bulk bandgap. Due to the spatial separation of the electron and hole wavefunctions in such structures, the oscillator strength of these transitions may become extremely small, many orders of magnitude lower than in the field-free case. From specially designed structures, we can even determine the sign of the piezoelectric field and relate it to the polarity of the layers. Under high-excitation conditions, as found in a laser diode, the piezoelectric field is almost completely screened by the injected carriers. As a consequence, the stimulated emission is significantly blue-shifted compared to the photoluminescence, which has sometimes been confused with localization effects.

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We have studied optical transitions in GaInN/GaN single and multiple quantum wells using time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. Our results show that the energy positions of the dominant emission lines strongly depend both on the well width and on the number of wells. In the case of multiple quantum wells, time-resolved measurements clearly distinguish multiple emission lines. These observations are consistently explained by considering the large built-in piezoelectric field in strained GaInN quantum wells. The multiple emission lines are attributed to intra- and interwell transitions between nearest and next-nearest neighbors.

Abstract:We designed and studied two sample groups: first, GaInN/AlGaN/GaN quantum wells with asymmetric barrier structure and secondly, GaInN/GaN quantum wells with asymmetrically doped barriers. Time-resolved measurements on the asymmetric structure reveal an enhanced oscillator strength when the AlGaN barrier is on top of the GaInN quantum well, indicating a better carrier confinement in such a structure. The photoluminescence emission energy of the GaInN/GaN quantum well with doped GaN barriers shifts towards higher energy than that of undoped samples due to screening, but only when the GaN barrier layer below the quantum well is doped. In contrast, the sample where only a GaN cap layer above the quantum well is doped, shows no blue-shift. These results, showing asymmetries in GaInN/GaN quantum wells, provide confirming evidence of the piezoelectric field effect and allow us to determine the sign of the piezoelectric field, which points towards the substrate in a compressively strained quantum well. Furthermore, we performed model calculations of the global band bending and the screening effect, which consistently explain our experimental findings.