APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 95, 081114 2009

Rate equation analysis of efciency droop in InGaN light-emitting diodes

Han-Youl Ryu,1,a Hyun-Sung Kim,2 and Jong-In Shim2
1 2

Department of Physics, Inha University, Incheon 402-751, Republic of Korea Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hanyang University, Ansan 426-791, Republic of Korea

Received 8 July 2009; accepted 11 August 2009; published online 28 August 2009 Efciency droop in InGaN light-emitting diodes LEDs is analyzed based on the rate equation model. By using the peak point of the efciency versus current-density relation as the parameters of the rate equation analysis, internal quantum efciency and each recombination current at arbitrary current density can be unambiguously determined without any knowledge of A, B, and C coefcients. The theoretical analysis is compared with measured efciency of a LED sample and good agreement between the model and experiment is found. The investigation of recombination coefcients shows that Auger recombination alone is not sufcient to explain the efciency droop of InGaN LEDs. 2009 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.3216578 In the development of InGaN-based light-emitting diodes LEDs, efciency droop has been a major problem limiting high efciency operation at high current density.1 Several loss mechanisms to explain the droop phenomenon have been proposed such as carrier leakage,24 carrier delocalization,5,6 and Auger nonradiative recombination.7,8 The Auger recombination scales with the cubic of carrier density and could be important at high carrier density. Since the Auger recombination coefcient by the band-to-band Auger recombination process decreases exponentially with energy band gap, the coefcient of InGaN materials was originally believed to be negligibly small, 1034 cm6 / s.9 Recently, several groups have reported much higher values of the Auger recombination coefcient 1031 2 1030 cm6 / s which have been attributed to defect- or phonon-assisted Auger recombination processes8 or interband Auger recombination.10 These large Auger recombination coefcients have been used to explain the efciency droop of InGaN LEDs. The Auger recombination mechanism for explaining the efciency droop is based on the rate equation model. The rate equation for carriers under steady state is given by multaneously by only one t process. In this work, we use the peak point of the IQE curve for the analysis of rate equation model. As will be shown later, there exists only one t parameter by using the peak point, which is proved to be very useful choice for the analysis of IQE and efciency droop in LEDs. In the relation of IQE versus current density in typical LEDs, there exist the maximum value of IQE max and the corresponding current density Jmax. The max and Jmax can be obtained from the condition, d / dJ = 0 at J = Jmax. Then, max and Jmax are expressed as follows:

max =

, B + 2AC

Jmax =

kA B + 2AC , C

where k = qd / j. By assuming j = 1, k is determined directly from QW thickness d. From Eq. 3, the A, B, and C coefcients are related to each other through max and Jmax, B= 4maxk A 2, Jmax1 max2 C= 4k2
2 Jmax 1 max2

A3 .

jJ
qd

= AN + BN2 + CN3 ,

where J, N, j, and d are current density, carrier density, injection efciency, and quantum well QW thickness, respectively. Here, A, B, and C coefcients represent ShockleyReadHall SRH nonradiative recombination, bimolecular radiative recombination, and Auger recombination, respectively. Assuming j = 1, the internal quantum efciency IQE can be written as11,12

Therefore, if one of A, B, or C coefcients is known, remaining coefcients can be obtained by using Eq. 4 with known quantities of Jmax, max, and k. Using Eqs. 13, the IQE at arbitrary current density J is expressed as

=1

1 max J 1+ 2J maxJmax

JJmax . max

BN2 . AN + BN2 + CN3

Based on Eqs. 1 and 2, it is possible to t experimental results of IQE versus current-density relation using A, B, and C coefcients as t parameters. However, it would not be easy to obtain exact values of these three t parameters sia

Electronic mail: hanryu@inha.ac.kr.

The IQE versus current-density relation is determined by solving the above equation. Interestingly, IQE has no explicit dependence on A, B, and C coefcients, and is unambiguously determined only from the Jmax and max value. Note that Jmax is exactly known by the measurement of external quantum efciency EQE versus current-density relation, and max can be used as a t parameter and compared with measurement. Therefore, three t parameters are reduced to only one in our approach, which makes the t process much easier and gives accurate results on the IQE analysis of LED efciency. Equation 5 implies that there exists only one efciency curve for given Jmax and max values regardless of A, B, and
2009 American Institute of Physics

0003-6951/2009/958/081114/3/$25.00

95, 081114-1

Downloaded 07 Jul 2010 to 165.246.55.125. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://apl.aip.org/apl/copyright.jsp

081114-2

Ryu, Kim, and Shim

Internal Quantum Efficiency

Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 081114 2009

External Quantum Efficiency
0.45 0.40 0.35 0.30 0.25 0.20
Measurement data Theoretical curve

(a)

1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2

max = 90% max = 80% max = 70% max = 50%

Jmax = 5 A/cm2
0.0 0 50 100 150 200 250

Current density [A/cm ]

300

20

40

60

80

Current density [A/cm ]

100

120

(b)

Internal Quantum Efficiency

1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0

max = 90% max = 80% max = 70% max = 50%

FIG. 2. Color online EQE of an LED sample solid dot and theoretical t to the measured data dotted line based on Eq. 5. Good agreement has been found when max is 79%.

Jmax = 50 A/cm2
0 50 100 150 200 250

Current density [A/cm ]

300

FIG. 1. IQE vs current density calculated from the rate equation model when max varies from 50% to 90%. a Jmax = 5 A / cm2 and b Jmax = 50 A / cm2.

C coefcients, and LEDs having the same Jmax and max should exhibit the identical efciency curve for all current densities. If the efciency of an LED sample deviates from the one predicted by Eq. 5, then it implies that the efciency of the LED cannot be described only by the rate equation model. In addition, it can be shown that each recombination current is obtained as JSRH = = 1 max 2

JJmax , max

JRad = J,

JAuger 6

J1 max 2maxJmax

JJmax . max

Again, SRH, radiative, and Auger recombination current have no explicit dependence on A, B, and C coefcients and can be determined from known quantities, max, Jmax, , and J. Figure 1 shows IQE versus current-density relation calculated from Eq. 5 for several max values when Jmax is 5 Fig. 1a and 50 A / cm2 Fig. 1b. For a given Jmax value, LEDs with higher max shows relatively less decreased IQE at high current density. When Jmax = 5 A / cm2, the relative decrease in IQE at 200 A / cm2 is 42%, 33%, and 23% for max of 50%, 70%, and 90%, respectively. In addition, as one can see that, by comparing Figs. 1a and 1b, LEDs with large Jmax show reduced droop of IQE for the same max. By combining large Jmax and high max, substantial reduction in efciency droop can be achieved. When Jmax is 50 A / cm2 and max is 90%, the relative decrease in IQE at 200 A / cm2 is only 2.3%. The above result indicates that the efciency droop problem can be improved by increasing max and Jmax. Then, several strategies for reducing the efciency droop can be found from Eq. 3. Both max and Jmax can be increased as the B coefcient increases, which improves high current efciency and reduces efciency droop by the enhancement in

radiative recombination rate. The large B coefcient could be obtained by increasing optical mode density in the LED. In addition, Jmax can be increased as k or QW thickness d increases. Increasing the QW thickness results in reduced carrier density for the same current density, leading to the increase in Jmax and hence reduction in the efciency droop behavior. In fact, the reduction in efciency droop in LEDs with thick QWs has also been demonstrated in many experimental works.1316 From Eq. 3, it is also found that Jmax can be increased as the A coefcient increases. This implies that LEDs with large defect density would be helpful in reducing the efciency droop, which has been observed in some experimental reports.17,18 However, increasing the A coefcient should be avoided since it decreases the maximum efciency signicantly. The theoretical analysis of efciency droop is compared with an experimental efciency curve. We measured output power of a commercial-grade LED sample at room temperature. In order to avoid heating effects, output power was measured under pulsed current operation with the pulse width of 100 ns and the duty cycle of 1%. The active region of the LED consists of two 2.5-nm-thick InGaN QWs with a 10-nm-thick GaN barrier. Peak wavelength of the emission spectrum exists around 460 nm. In Fig. 2, the EQE of the LED sample is plotted as a function of injection current density. The Jmax of this sample is 1.7 A / cm2. The theoretical IQE curve obtained by solving Eq. 5 is overlaid on the measured result of EQE versus current density relation, and good agreement is observed up to 100 A / cm2 when max is 79%. This max value has been proved to be quite similar to that measured by other separate experiments. Using max, Jmax, and d of the LED sample, the relation between A and C coefcients can be found from Eq. 4. Figure 3 shows nonradiative carrier lifetime SRH that is the inverse of the A coefcient as a function of the C coefcient for two QW thicknesses, 2.5 and 5.0 nm. Although the total physical thickness of QWs is 5.0 nm in our LED sample, the effective QW thickness would be smaller than this and lie between 2.5 and 5.0 nm due to inhomogeneous hole distribution in the InGaN multiple QW structure.1921 The difference of two curves for each QW thickness is not so large. Recently reported A coefcient values in InGaN QWs are between 2 107 and 2 108 s1,1,22 which corresponds to SRH of 550 ns. This SRH is similar to the nonradiative carrier lifetime measured at room temperature. In Fig. 3, however, when SRH lies between 5 and 50 ns, the corresponding range of the C coefcient is around

Downloaded 07 Jul 2010 to 165.246.55.125. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://apl.aip.org/apl/copyright.jsp

081114-3

Ryu, Kim, and Shim

Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 081114 2009

1000

SRH (=1/A) [ns]

d = 5.0 nm d = 2.5 nm

100

cients, and the C coefcient has been obtained to be much larger than previously reported values, which implies that Auger recombination alone could not explain the efciency droop phenomenon of InGaN LEDs. This work was supported by Strategic Technology Development Project of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
G. Chen, M. Craven, A. Kim, A. Munkholm, S. Watanabe, M. Camras, W. Gtz, and F. Steranka, Phys. Status Solidi A 205, 1086 2008; M. Peter, A. Laubsch, W. Bergbauer, T. Meyer, M. Sabathil, J. Baur, and B. Hahn, ibid. 206, 1125 2009. 2 M. H. Kim, M. F. Schubert, Q. Dai, J. K. Kim, E. F. Schubert, J. Piprek, and Y. Park, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 183507 2007. 3 I. V. Rozhansky and D. A. Zakheim, Phys. Status Solidi A 204, 227 2007. 4 K. J. Vampola, M. Iza, S. Keller, S. P. DenBaars, and S. Nakamura, Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 061116 2009. 5 B. Monemar and B. E. Sernelius, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 181103 2007. 6 Y. Yang, X. A. Cao, and C. Yan, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices 55, 1771 2008. 7 Y. C. Shen, G. O. Mueller, S. Watanabe, N. F. Gardner, A. Munkholm, and M. R. Krames, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 141101 2007. 8 K. A. Bulashevich and S. Y. Karpov, Phys. Status Solidi C 5, 2066 2008; A. Laubsch, M. Sabathil, W. Bergbauer, M. Strassburg, H. Lugauer, M. Peter, S. Lutgen, N. Linder, K. Streubel, J. Hader, J. V. Moloney, B. Pasenow, and S. W. Koch, ibid. 6, S913 2009. 9 J. Hader, J. V. Moloney, B. Pasenow, S. W. Koch, M. Sabathil, N. Linder, and S. Lutgen, Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 261103 2008. 10 K. T. Delaney, P. Rinke, and C. G. Van de Walle, Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 191109 2009. 11 L. A. Coldren and S. W. Corzine, Diode Lasers and Photonic Integrated Circuits Wiley, New York, 1995. 12 H. Y. Ryu, K. H. Ha, J. H. Chae, K. S. Kim, J. K. Son, O. H. Nam, and Y. Park, Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 171106 2006. 13 N. F. Gardner, G. O. Muller, Y. C. Shen, G. Chen, S. Watanabe, W. Gotz, and M. R. Krames, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 243506 2007. 14 Y. L. Li, Y. R. Huang, and Y. H. Lai, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 181113 2007. 15 M. Maier, K. Khler, M. Kunzer, W. Pletschen, and J. Wagner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 041103 2009. 16 A. Laubsch, W. Bergbauer, M. Sabathil, M. Strassburg, H. Lugauer, M. Peter, T. Meyer, G. Brderl, J. Wagner, N. Linder, K. Streubel, and B. Hahn, Phys. Status Solidi C 6, S885 2009. 17 M. F. Schubert, S. Chhajed, J. K. Kim, E. F. Schubert, D. D. Koleske, M. H. Crawford, S. R. Lee, A. J. Fischer, G. Thaler, and M. A. Banas, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 231114 2007. 18 Y. Yang, X. A. Cao, and C. H. Yan, Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 041117 2009. 19 A. David, M. J. Grundmann, J. F. Kaeding, N. F. Gardner, T. G. Mihopoulos, and M. R. Krames, Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 053502 2008. 20 J. Xie, X. Ni, Q. Fan, R. Shimada, U. Ozgur, and H. Morkoc, Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 121107 2008. 21 H. Y. Ryu and K. H. Ha, Opt. Express 16, 10849 2008. 22 Q. Dai, M. F. Schubert, M. H. Kim, J. K. Kim, E. F. Schubert, D. D. Koleske, M. H. Crawford, S. R. Lee, A. J. Fischer, G. Thaler, and M. A. Banas, Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 111109 2009.
1

10

10-32

10-30 10-28 10-26 6 C coefficient [cm /s]

10-24

FIG. 3. SRH nonradiative carrier lifetime SRH =1 / A as a function of the C coefcient calculated from Eq. 4 for the LED sample in Fig. 2. Solid and dotted lines correspond to the QW thickness of 5.0 and 2.5 nm, respectively.

1027 1024 cm6 / s. This value is at least 1000 times higher than recently reported C coefcients of 1031 2 1030 cm6 / s in InGaN materials.1,8 Conversely, when C lies between 1031 and 2 1030 cm6 / s, corresponding SRH is 3001500 ns, which is too large for SRH nonradiative carrier lifetime. We tested several other LED samples and obtained similar relation between A and C coefcients. The results in Fig. 3 deviate too much from previously reported values of A and C coefcients. Even when the A coefcient is assumed to be 107 s1 SRH = 100 ns, the corresponding C coefcient is larger than 1028 cm6 / s. Since no reported Auger recombination mechanisms in InGaN materials could explain such a high C value, this large C coefcient would not represent the Auger recombination effect only. Instead, the large C coefcient might imply that there exist other nonradiative carrier recombination processes which could be approximated to be proportional to the cubic of carrier density in addition to the Auger recombination. Further works are still required to clarify the mechanisms of the efciency droop in InGaN LEDs and the role of Auger recombination on that. In conclusion, we analyzed the rate equation to investigate efciency droop phenomenon in InGaN LEDs using the max and Jmax as parameters of the rate equation model instead of A, B, and C coefcients. For given max and Jmax, IQE and each recombination current at arbitrary current density have been uniquely obtained without any knowledge of A, B, and C coefcients. Our model for the rate equation analysis has shown good agreement of the efciency versus current-density relation with measurement results. In addition, we investigated the relation between A and C coef-

Downloaded 07 Jul 2010 to 165.246.55.125. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://apl.aip.org/apl/copyright.jsp