Effect of the AlGaN Multi‐Quantum Well Growth Temperature on the Efficiency of Metal‐Organic Vapor‐Phase Epitaxy‐Grown Far‐Ultraviolet‐C Light‐Emitting Diodes Emitting near 235 nm

Abstract

The effect of the active region growth temperature (TMQW) on the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of AlGaN‐based far‐ultraviolet‐C light‐emitting diodes (far‐UVC LEDs) emitting near 235 nm is investigated. AlGaN multi‐quantum well (MQW) active regions are grown at temperatures between 850 and 1100 °C by metal‐organic vapor‐phase epitaxy, while special care is taken to keep aluminum mole fractions and thicknesses constant for all MQWs. Temperature‐ and excitation‐power‐dependent photoluminescence spectroscopy reveal a more than tenfold increase of the radiative recombination efficiency (RRE) when the growth temperature increases from 850 to 1020–1060 °C. The output powers for mounted far‐UVC LEDs at 0.2 A increase from 0.5 mW for TMQW of 900 °C to 2.5 mW for TMQW of 1020 °C, corresponding to an increase in EQE from 0.04% to 0.23% at 0.2 A. However, lifetime measurements reveal a reduction of the L70 lifetime from 400 to 1 h when TMQW increases from 900 to 1060 °C. In this investigation, it is shown that optimizing the growth conditions provides a promising approach to further increase the RRE and EQE and lifetime of far‐UVC LEDs.