Optical and structural properties of GaN nanopillar and nanostripe arrays with embedded InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells

GaN nanopillar and nanostripe arrays with embedded InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells (MQWs) were fabricated by holographic lithography and subsequent reactive ion etching. Etch related damage of the nanostructures was successfully healed through annealing in NH3/N-2 mixtures under optimized conditions. The nanopatterned samples exhibited enhanced luminescence in comparison to the planar wafers. X-ray reciprocal space maps recorded around the asymmetric (10 (1) over bar5) reflection revealed that the MQWs in both nanopillars and nanostripes relaxed after nanopatterning and adopted a larger in-plane lattice constant than the underlying GaN layer. The pillar relaxation process had no measurable effect on the Stokes shift typically observed in MQWs on c-plane GaN, as evaluated by excitation power dependent photoluminescence (PL) measurements. Angular-resolved PL measurements revealed the extraction of guided modes from the nanopillar arrays. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.