Electrical measurement of internal quantum efficiency and extraction efficiency of III-N light-emitting diodes

We propose a direct electrical measurement method for determining the extraction efficiency (EXE) and internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of III-Nitride light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The method is based on measuring the optical output power as a function of injection current at current densities near the external quantum efficiency (EQE) maximum and extracting IQE and EXE from the measurement data. In contrast to conventional methods, our method requires no low temperature measurements or prior knowledge of the device structure. The method is far more convenient than commonly used methods because it enables measuring the EXE and IQE of different LED structures at room temperature directly in a repeatable and consistent way. This enables convenient comparison of LED structures. We apply the method to determine the IQE and EXE of one commercial LED and selected self-grown planar LED chips to compare the effects of different LED structure designs. Our results are in line with published experimental results and also give more insight to our earlier findings regarding the effects of growth parameters on the quantum efficiency. In addition, our measurement method allows estimating the Shockley-Read-Hall and radiative recombination parameters if the Auger parameter is known. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4736565]