Direct interband and intraband Auger recombination due to electron-electron-hole and hole-hole-electron transitions in bulk InGaN is investigated by first-order perturbation theory including Fermi statistics, realistic electronic structures obtained by nonlocal empirical pseudopotential calculations, and their corresponding wavevector-dependent dielectric functions. Our results confirm that the intraband Auger coefficient is negligible in alloy compositions relevant for solid-state lighting and indicate that the resonant enhancement associated with interband transitions for wavelengths ranging from blue to green cannot account for the efficiency droop experimentally observed in GaN-based light emitting diodes.

Indirect phonon-assisted Auger recombination mechanisms in bulk InGaN are investigated in the framework of perturbation theory, using first-principles phonon spectral density functions and electronic structures obtained by nonlocal empirical pseudopotential calculations. Nonpolar carrier-phonon interactions are treated within the rigid pseudoion framework, thus avoiding the introduction of empirical deformation potentials. The calculated indirect Auger coefficients exhibit a weak temperature dependence and dominate over direct processes for alloy compositions corresponding to the entire visible spectrum. The present results suggest that indirect Auger processes may be relevant in the operation of InGaN-based light-emitting diodes and lasers, at least in the yellow-green spectral region.

This tutorial paper focuses on the physical origin of thermal droop, i.e., the decrease in the luminescence of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) induced by increasing temperature. III-nitride-based LEDs are becoming a pervasive technology, covering several fields from lighting to displays, from automotive to portable electronics, and from horticulture to sensing. In all these environments, high efficiency is a fundamental requirement, for reducing power consumption and system cost. Over the last decade, a great deal of effort has been put in the analysis of the efficiency droop, the decrease in LED internal quantum efficiency (IQE) induced by high current density. On the other hand, an IQE decrease is observed also for increasing temperature, a phenomenon usually referred to as thermal droop. For commercial LEDs, the IQE decrease related to thermal droop can be comparable to that of efficiency droop: for this reason, understanding thermal droop is a fundamental step for making LEDs capable of operating at high temperature levels. In several fields (including street lighting, automotive, photochemical treatments, projection, entertainment lighting, etc.), compact and high-flux light sources are required: typically, to reduce the size, weight, and cost of the systems, LEDs are mounted in compact arrays, and heat sinks are reduced to a minimum. As a consequence, LEDs can easily reach junction temperatures above 85–100 °C and are rated for junction temperatures up to 150–175 °C (figures from commercially available LED datasheets: Cree XHP70, Osram LUW HWQP, Nichia NVSL219CT, Samsung LH351B, and LedEngin LZP-00CW0R) and this motivates a careful analysis of thermal droop. This paper discusses the possible physical causes of thermal droop. After an introduction on the loss mechanisms in junctions, we will individually focus on the following processes: (i) Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH) recombination and properties of the related defects; (ii) Auger recombination and its temperature dependence, including the discussion of trap-assisted Auger recombination; (iii) impact of carrier transport on the thermal droop, including a discussion on carrier delocalization, escape, and freeze out; (iv) non-SRH defect-related droop mechanisms. In addition, (v) we discuss the processes that contribute to light emission at extremely low current levels and (vi) the thermal droop in deep ultraviolet LEDs, also with reference to the main parasitic emission bands. The results presented within this paper give a tutorial perspective on thermal droop; in addition, they suggest a pathway for the mitigation of this process and for the development of LEDs with stable optical output over a broad temperature range.

The properties of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are investigated by means of a multiphysical model, VENUS (Vcsel Electro-opto-thermal NUmerical Simulator). VENUS includes a three-dimensional vectorial electromagnetic code, a description of the quantum well optical response, a heat equation solver, and a quantum-corrected drift-diffusion simulator. The proposed suite includes coupling mechanisms often overlooked in VCSEL simulation and allows to reassess the impact of parameters which can be critically dependent on implementation details inaccessible in commercial codes. The agreement with experimental results holds the promise of the application of this framework to the computer-aided design of innovative VCSEL concepts.

Theoretical investigations of carrier transport in type-II superlattice detectors have been mostly limited to simplified semiclassical treatments, due to the computational challenges posed by quantum kinetic approaches. For example, interband tunneling in broken-gap configurations calls for a multiband description of the electronic structure, and spatially indirect optical transitions in superlattice absorbers require fully nonlocal carrier-photon self-energies. Moreover, a large number of iterations is needed to achieve self-consistency between Green’s functions and self-energies in the presence of strongly localized states not directly accessible from the contacts. We demonstrate an accurate, yet computationally feasible nonequilibrium Green’s function model of superlattice detectors by formulating the kinetic equations in terms of problem-matched maximally localized basis functions, numerically generated from few modes representing the main conductive channels of the nanostructure. The contribution of all the remaining modes is folded in an additional self-energy to ensure current conservation. Inspection of spatially and energetically resolved single particle properties offers insight into the complex nature of carrier transport in type-II superlattice detectors, and the connection to semiclassical approaches enables the interpretation of mobility experiments.