Auger recombination rates in nitrides from first principles

We report Auger recombination rates for wurtzite InGaN calculated from first-principles density-functional and many-body-perturbation theory. Two different mechanisms are examined-inter- and intra-band recombination-that affect different parts of the emission spectrum. In the blue to green spectral region and at room temperature the Auger coefficient can be as large as 2x10(-30) cm(6) s(-1); in the infrared it is even larger. Since Auger recombination scales with the cubic power of the free-carrier concentration it becomes an important nonradiative loss mechanism at high current densities. Our results indicate that Auger recombination may be responsible for the loss of quantum efficiency that affects InGaN-based light emitters.