Effects of growth temperature and postgrowth annealing on inhomogeneous luminescence characteristics of green-emitting InGaN films

Abstract

Microscopic photoluminescence was applied to investigate μm-order inhomogeneity of InGaN alloys. Samples had InGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-well structures grown on sapphire substrates at various temperatures, and luminescence was adjusted to be green. Luminescence morphologies of dendritic appearance were observed on as-grown samples. Bright spots luminescing at long wavelengths (green to amber) were formed at high growth temperatures. After annealing at 1000°C, the bright spots disappeared and the dendritic morphology turned into a granular morphology. Because of these μm-order inhomogeneities, it has been suggested that small-scale characterization (sub-μm or smaller) requires special attention in order not to miss effects of μm-order inhomogeneity in InGaN alloys. © 2009 The Author(s).