Temperature characteristics of spontaneous emission and optical gain in blue InGaN/GaN quantum well structures

Temperature characteristics of the light emission in blue InGaN/GaN quantum well (QW) structures were investigated using the multiband effective mass theory. The light emission intensity decreases gradually with increasing temperature because of the reduction in the optical matrix element due to the decrease in the potential well depth. On the other hand, the spillover is shown to be negligible in the investigated range of temperature and the T-0 value of about 255 K is obtained. The radiative recombination coefficient B-eff decreases from 0.3 x to 0.2 x 10(-4) cm(6)/s at the sheet carrier density of 5 x 10(12) cm(-2) when changing from 300 to 400 K. As a result, the internal efficiency is reduced with increasing temperature because of the reduction in the radiative recombination rate. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.