Luminescence of Highly Excited Nonpolar a-Plane GaN and AlGaN/GaN Multiple Quantum Wells

Carrier recombination dynamics in polar and nonpolar GaN epilayers and GaN/AlGaN multiple quantum wells grown over sapphire substrates with various crystallographic orientation were studied under high photoexcitation by 20 ps laser pulses. The transient of luminescence featured a significant enhancement in nonradiative recombination of free carriers for nonpolar a-plane GaN epilayers compared to conventional c-plane samples. The epitaxial lateral overgrowth technique was demonstrated to significantly improve the quality of nonpolar a-plane films. This was proved by more than 40-fold increase in luminescence decay time (430 ps compared to ≤10 ps in the ordinary a-plane epilayer). Under high-excitation regime, a complete screening of built-in electric field by free carriers in multiple quantum wells grown on c-plane and r-plane sapphire substrates was achieved. Under such high excitation, luminescence efficiency and carrier lifetime of multiple quantum wells was shown to be determined by the substrate quality.