Investigation of low-temperature optical characteristics of ingan/gan based nanorod light emitting arrays

For InGaN/GaN based nanorod devices using topdown etching process, the optical output power is affected by non-radiative recombination due to sidewall defects (which decrease light output efficiency) and mitigated quantum confined Stark effect (QCSE) due to strain relaxation (which increases internal quantum efficiency). Therefore, the exploration of lowtemperature optical behaviors of nanorod light emitting diodes (LEDs) will help identify the correlation between those two factors. In this work, low-temperature EL spectra of InGaN/GaN nanorod arrays was explored and compared with those of planar LEDs. The nanorod LED exhibits a much higher optical output percentage increase when the temperature decreases. The increase is mainly attributed to the increased carriers and a better spatial overlap of electrons and holes in the quantum wells for radiative recombination. Next, while the nanorod array shows nearly constant peak energy with increasing injection currents at the temperature of 300K, the blue shift has been observed at 190K. The results suggest that with more carriers in the quantum wells, carrier screening and band filling still prevail in the partially strain relaxed nanorods. Moreover, when the temperature drops to 77K, the blue shift of both nanorod and planar devices disappears and the optical output power decreases since there are few carriers in the quantum wells for radiative recombination.