Photoluminescence study of MOCVD-grown GaN/AlGaN MQW nanostructures: influence of Al composition and Si doping

A detailed study of low-temperature photoluminescence (PL) in GaN/AlGaN multiple quantum well (MQW) nanostructures has been reported. We have investigated the effect of Si doping and Al content on PL spectra and PL decay time of these structures. The temperature dependence of radiative as well as non-radiative lifetimes have been evaluated between 2 K and room temperature for different Si doping. We found that radiative recombination at higher temperatures even up to RT is stronger in the doped sample, compared to the undoped one. Hole localization in GaN/AlGaN MQWs with different compositions of Al is demonstrated via PL transient decay times and LO phonon coupling. It is found that there is an increasing of the decay time at the PL peak emission with increasing Al composition. For the undoped sample, a non-exponential PL decay behaviour at 2 K is attributed to localized exciton recombination. A slight upshift in QWs PL peak with increasing Al composition is observed, which is counteracted by the expected rise of the internal QW electric field with increasing Al. The localization energies have been evaluated by studying the variation of the QW emission versus temperature and we found out that the localization energy increases with increasing Al composition.