Direct Observation of the Biaxial Stress Effect on Efficiency Droop in GaN-based Light-emitting Diode under Electrical Injection

Light-emitting diode (LED) efficiency has attracted considerable interest because of the extended use of solid-state lighting. Owing to lack of direct measurement, identification of the reasons for efficiency droop has been restricted. A direct measurement technique is developed in this work for cha...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zheng, Jinjian, Li, Shuiqing, Chou, Chilun, Lin, Wei, Xun, Feilin, Guo, Fei, Zheng, Tongchang, Li, Shuping, Kang, Junyong
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2015
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4669452/
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Summary:Light-emitting diode (LED) efficiency has attracted considerable interest because of the extended use of solid-state lighting. Owing to lack of direct measurement, identification of the reasons for efficiency droop has been restricted. A direct measurement technique is developed in this work for characterization of biaxial stress in GaN-based blue LEDs under electrical injection. The Raman shift of the GaN E2 mode evidently decreases by 4.4 cm−1 as the driving current on GaN-based LEDs increases to 700 mA. Biaxial compressive stress is released initially and biaxial tensile stress builds up as the current increases with respect to the value of stress-free GaN. First-principles calculations reveal that electron accumulation is responsible for the stress variation in InxGa1−xN/GaN quantum wells, and then reduces the transition probability among quantum levels. This behavior is consistent with the measured current-dependent external quantum efficiency. The rule of biaxial stress-dependent efficiency is further validated by controlling the biaxial stress of GaN-based LEDs with different sapphire substrate thicknesses. This work provides a method for direct observation of the biaxial stress effect on efficiency droop in LEDs under electrical injection.