Blue LED Simulation
1. Introduction
It is very important to understand the operation and underly-
ing physics of InGaN/GaN materials based electronic device
in modern display industry such as flat-panel-display for
back-light illumination and high efficiency light bulbs. For
these reasons, the numerical device simulation is adapted to
study the improvement of LED efficiency and to understand
the basic operation of multiple quantum well LEDs.
But the main problem in device simulation is that there are so
many unknown physical parameters which cannot be easily
measured and is also still in debate regarding the actual po-
larization in the layer after screening by defects(dislocation
or V-defect) and uncertain polarity which depends on sub-
strate condition and growth condition.
The basic simulation study for GaN LEDs utilizes the con-
ventional InGaN/GaN MQW(multiple quantum well) LED
structure and then extends the efficiency limit of this con-
ventional LED structure to further incorporate n+SPS(short-
period-superlattice) for pure ohmic contact and current
spreading layer for both n-side and p-side layers. Regarding
active emission regions, we may consider various techniques
to improve LED efficiency such as band-gap engineered cas-
cade quantum well design or tunneling junction which will
dramatically improve carrier injection into the quantum well
regions and to increase efficiency by over 100%.
Despite the fact that all of these LED structures are basi-
cally based on the conventional LED structure, it is still not
known about the correct simulation models and how to
take into account experimental observation such as trap-
assisted tunneling through trap states in the quantum well
region, the amount of actual polarization, and polarity.
Figure 1. Carrier density profile with different band-offset ratio(left: 70% band-offet, right:50% band-offet) red color is electron concentra-
tion and blue color is hole concentration.
The Simulation Standard Page 6 January, February, March 2016
These motivate this article to study more details about
the basic forward characteristic of current injection and
various effects on the forward voltage shift.
We will briefly explain the new capture-escape model
for an accurate description of carrier distribution in the
barrier, quantum well region and importance of polar-
ity in AlN/GaN/InN material growth, and finally how
to simulate the forward characteristic of LED operation.
2. Simulation Models
Practical approach to simulate LED device is to use clas-
sical drift-diffusion solver with the self-consistent the
Schrodinger-Poisson solver for the quantum well bound
state energy and then use this result to calculate spon-
taneous emission rate by developing effective mass ap-
proximation from k.p theory. We need to know that this
approach is only valid in parabolic band approximation.
With this assumption we simulated a conventional led
with the following structure.
(1) Simulation LED Structure
0.4um pGaN – acceptor: 12x1018 / cm3
0.045um thick EBL (AlxGaN(1-x) x=0.15) acceptor: 12x1018 / cm3
0.015um thick GaN spacer
8 pairs of InxGaN(1-x) /GaN well(x=0.17)
3um nGaN donor-5x1018 / cm3
* spacer and well/barrier have unintentionally doped
donor level~2x1018 / cm3
Figure 2. Polarization effect on IV shift by polarization(left) and by the number of quantum well(right).
(2) Band-offset Ratio
We studied band-offset effect on the carrier profile with
drift-diffusion solution.
The default hetero junction band-offset ratio is 70% in
ATLAS but in this case it shows very low electron car-
rier concentration in the first few quantum well/barrier
regions(left in Figure 1.) even though the injected current
density is 200mA/cm2. When we used 50% band-offset
ratio and it showed reasonable electron concentration
and radiative rate in the wells (right in Figure 1.) within
the drift-diffusion solution.
(3) Limitation of Drift-diffusion Simulation
From previous simulation results, even though we ad-
justed the band-offset to a lower value to get high elec-
tron concentration in the first few quantum well regions,
the hole and electron profile in barrier regions is very low
and abrupt at the interface. This is related to lower carrier
penetration to barrier from well regions. We will discuss
this more details in section 2-4.
We studied in the forward current behavior depending
on the number of quantum well with drift-diffusion
without capture-escape model. It shows that the IV shifts
to higher forward voltage when number of quantum well
increases at fixed positive the polarization and is related to
increased series resistance of quantum well/barrier regions
caused by low carrier density in the barrier regions. Also
when we increase the polarization charge from 0 to 50%
then it will also increase the forward voltage (Figure 2).
This is unrealistic behavior as we can see in a real LED
operation. So we can conclude that drift-diffusion solution
cannot alone explains current behavior very well.
At this point, we need to take into account of more general
carrier transport models to describe the accurate carrier
dynamics in both the quantum well and barrier regions.
January, February, March 2016 Page 7 The Simulation Standard
(4) Capture-Escape Model
It is well known fact that the conventional LED simula-
tion can be easily done by classical drift diffusion with
self-consistent quantum well Schrodinger-Poisson solver
and spontaneous emission rate from multiple band kp
theory. But classical drift-diffusion approach have shown
very high the forward voltage even at low polarization,
low series resistance(high doping) , and show unrealis-
tic carrier profile between barrier and quantum well. It is
worse in the case of multiple quantum well in that when
the number of quantum well is increased then the IV
curve tends to shift to higher forward voltage.
For these reasons, we recently developed a new capture-
escape model which calculates the exact 2D bound carrier
density in the well regions with detailed carrier capture
from the bulk barrier and escape from the well into the
barrier by adding probability of carrier capture-escape
mechanism into carrier rate equation.
The purpose of the article is to show the validation of
new capture-escape model through comparison with ex-
perimental data and to give some guidelines for optimiz-
ing new models for real LED simulation.
General 3D carrier density rate equations are now modi-
fied into following form.
n3D is the bulk carrier density and Cn3D->2D is capture-
escape rate from this bulk carrier to 2D carrier in the well.
(1)
(2)
2D carrier density rate equations in the well regions become
(3)
(4)
In the 2D in-plane quantum well regions, net recombi-
nation rate is the sum of spontaneous emission rate and
total capture-escape rate.
Here, x,z plane is in quantum well in-plane and y is as-
sumed to be normal growth direction.
The 2D bound carrier density becomes
(5)
The bulk carrier density which is used to calculate the
current density in the drift-diffusion formalism is modi-
fied to consider this confined 2D carrier in the quantum
well regions.
(6)
The capture-escape rate is calculated by the the following
equation.
(7)
Here, tn is capture time in the well. ( material well.
taun=1e-12 s well.taup=1e-12 s )
• rr2D = mr/ph2L2 is the two-dimensional density of states.
• mr is a reduced electron-hole mass.
• nr is a material refractive index.
• Im,n = (fm|fn) in a overlap integral of electron and
hole wavefunctions.
Now, when we consider this new capture-escape model
to the forward current dependence on number of quan-
tum well as in section 2-3, the forward the voltage shift is
less pronounced as compared to Figure 2.
If polarization is further decreased by taking into account
of more defect screening effect or is zero then, forward
voltage change is less pronounced with increasing quan-
tum well or no further forward voltage shift, in 4QW case
(Figure 3). The carrier-profile by capture-escape model
well explains why forward voltage is lower by drift-dif-
fusion solution. The carrier has some probability to pen-
etrate into barrier regions which are much higher than in
the case of non-capture-escape model (Figure 4.).

To consider this additional 2D bound carriers, we also

have to consider SRH recombination as well as Auger re-
combinations in the well region. Atlas takes into account
these recombination in the quantum well regions includ-
ing surface and interface trap recombinations.

material capt.augern=1e-31 capt.augerp=1e-31

;Auger in the well

material capt.srh.n=1e-9 capt.srh.p=1e-9

;SRH in the well

inttrap qwell s.i donor e.level=0.2 density=1e12

;interface trap

interface s.i s.well.n=1e3 s.well.p=1e3

;surface recombination

To activatethe above recombinations we need to turn on

the following model flags.

model capt.srh capt.auger well.capt

well.inplane well.selfcon

In the above model, well.inplane considers 2D in-plane

current density equation.

In the effective mass and parabolic approximation, the

radiative recombination in quantum well is

(8)

Figure 3. Forward current behavior by capture-escape model(left

figure shows IV shift by number of quantum well with +50%polar-
where ization of theoretical value and right figure shows less IV shift plot
by number of quantum well without polarization).

The Simulation Standard Page 8 January, February, March 2016

Figure 4. carrier distribution at 200A/cm2 ( left is without capture-escape model and right figure shows carrier distribution with capture-
escape model).

The carrier profile without capture-escape model shows
that electron concentration in the barrier region is far be-
low 1x1010/cm3 in 1st barrier and hole concentration is
decreased to below 1x10/cm^3 at the 3rd barrier region.
But the carrier concentrations in the barrier by capture-
escape model are smoothly decayed from quantum well
region and have 1x1014/cm3 in the first two quantum
well/barrier pairs. We can conclude from this result that
capture-escape model accurately describes the exact the
carrier profile and so explains why drift-diffusion solu-
tion always produces high forward voltage when the
number of quantum well is increased.
3. Material Growth and Trap-Assisted
Tunneling (TAT)
So far we have used the positive polarization scheme, in
which polarization is directed toward to bottom interface
as in Ga-face growth condition. But polarity is still un-
certain because it is very dependent on which substrate
buffer layer is used and also on growth condition.
The default polarity in Atlas uses positive convention
which is positive charge at the bottom interface and
negative charge at the top interfac the. So direction of
polarization is downward and built-in electric field is
opposite direction. Figure 6. shows that polarity inver-
sion significantly affects the forward voltage. The actual
amount of polarization by screening effect from various
defects(dislocation or V-defect) is very hard to estimate
and optimize to fit the experimental forward current.
Most simulation tasks so far normally use polarization
between 20% and 80% from the theoretical value but it is
a very broad range to adjust to fit forward current.
When we use polarization we should keep in mind that
the polarization is globally scaled from theoretical cal-
culation which is not true in actual polarization of each
layer. To simulate more accurate polar-GaN LEDs it is
very important to understand the underlying polariza-
tion in each layer.
Also, if non-negligible traps in the quantum well ex-
ist, there are some possibilities that electron can tunnel
from n-side to p-side region via trap-assisted tunneling
mechanisms.
For this purpose, we simulated trap-assisted tunneling
to see the effect on forward tunneling current in a single
quantum well case.

Figure 5. polarity inversion by substrate and buffer layer.

January, February, March 2016 Page 9 The Simulation Standard

 4. Band-gap Reduction by Ambient
Temperature
We studied the ambient temperature effect on forward
current because LED performance is significantly affect-
ed by the operation temperature. Normally, high efficien-
cy and high power LED operates in fairly high tempera-
ture above 300K and band-gap reduction by temperature
is very important to analyze forward current behavior.
The default band-gap reduction model by temperature
is Varshini model and model parameters are listed in
Piprek’s book[5].

(9)

Figure 6. forward current behavior by polarity(red: minus polarity,

blue: positive polarity).
In negative polarity, low bias region is much more affect-
Figure 7 shows forward current behavior caused by exis- ed by temperature but in positive polarity whole region
tence of traps in quantum well regions and trap-assisted is increased by evaluated ambient device temperature.
tunneling effects in low bias regions. In a positive polar-
ity case, we can see the conventional trap-assisted tun-
neling current at low bias range.

Figure 7. forward current behavior by donor trap and trap-as- Figure 8. Ambient temperature effect on forward current(left:
sisted tunneling(red: without traps and TAT, blue: with trap only, negative polarity, right: positive polarity).
light blue: traps + TAT). Left plot is negative polarization case and
right plot is positive polarization case.

The Simulation Standard Page 10 January, February, March 2016

Figure 9. Simulation of forward current using capture-escape model(left figure is linear plot and right is log plot).

5. Validation most important to fit the efficiency droop curve in the

(1) Capture-Escape Model
The new capture-escape model in Atlas was validated
through experimental data from reference[1].
The forward voltage is 3.24V at 20mA and it is very close
to the reported value in the reference.
high injection range. The external quantum efficiency
(EQE) is defined as the ratio of the emitted number
of photons to the number of injected carriers. From
the simulation results, the total EQE ratio is obtained
through dividing the total radiative rate in the quan-
tum wells by injection current.

The ~V/Rs region(ohmic) is well reproduced and at me-

dium bias range it shows very close to the experimental
data. Thereafter, red color is the experimental data and
blue color is the fitted simulation data.

The power curve is fitted by assuming 80% extraction

efficiency and effective mass is adjusted to fit luminious
power from spontaneous emission spectrum (Figure 10).

Figure 11 shows apparent Auger droop efficiency curve

and Auger coefficient value of 2.4e-30 is adjusted to fit
high current regions.

To fit the low and medium bias range SRH life time
is most dominant fitting parameters which are well
explained in ABC model and Auger coefficient is the

Figure 10. IL curve fitting result to experimental data. Figure 11. EQE plot(left is linear scale and right is log scale).

January, February, March 2016 Page 11 The Simulation Standard


Figure 12. carrier distribution(left) and each recombination rate
in the quantum well by the capture-escape model.
The internal quantum efficiency (IQE) is defined as Rrad
/( Rrad + Rnon_rad).
The radiative rate (Rrad) is the total radiative rate which
is mostly coming from quantum well regions and the
non-radiative rate (Rnon_rad) is the sum of each SRH
and Auger recombination rate.
As we can see from Figure 13, the carrier profile is very
different with drift-diffusion solution (Figure 1.)
The carrier concentration is much higher in barrier re-
gions than the profile by the drift-diffusion solution.
Because the standard LED has AlGaN EBL layer to block
electron current from n-side, there is small leakage cur-
rent and most current flows into the quantum well and
then recombines to give spontaneous or non-radiative
rate. Some references define the external quantum effi-
ciency as the following equation.
(10)
Figure 13. Wall-Plug-Efficiency.
The Simulation Standard Page 12 January, February, March 2016
The injection efficiency() is the ratio of the total injected
current into the quantum well to the total current. In this
conventional LED example, the injection efficiency is as-
sumed to be 1.0 and EQE equals to internal quantum ef-
ficiency().
The wall-plug-efficiency(WPE) in Figure 13 is defined
as the ratio of the total output power (W) to the input
power(I*V). There are many unknown physical param-
eters like SRH life time, Auger coefficients, and capture-
escape time. The SRH life time and Auger coefficients
are adjusted to fit the experimental data. The overall
simulation results are quite well reproduced with the
capture-escape model and physical parameters from the
reference[1]
(2) Trap-Assist Tunneling(TAT)
Because trap-assisted tunneling is very important mech-
anism in low and medium bias ranges, we fitted to the
experimental data[6] through Atlas trap-assisted tunnel-
ing model with the capture-escape approach. For this
purpose, we took into account of mid-gap traps states in
quantum well region where is the most probable path for
tunneling via trap site. Because field enhancement term
of TAT is strongly dependent on local field in SRH re-
combination rate, the most important fitting parameter is
actual polarization charge which is also affected by well
Indium composition, defects, and well thickness.
We used tunneling effective mass to fit the experimental
data and Figure 14 shows reproducing the experimental
forward current behavior except below 2.0V. Accord-
ing to the paper, difference below 2.0V could be due to
heavy-hole tunneling. We need to study more about this
in another trap-assisted tunneling mechanism.
 References.
1. Blue light emitting diode exceeding 100% quantum ef-
ficiency, Joachim Piprek, Phys. Status Solidi RRL 8, No. 5,
424-426(2014)
2. Simulation of light-emitting diodes for new physics under-
standing and device design, K. A. Bulashevich et al., Proc.
Of SPIE, vol. 8278(2012)
3. Consistent set of band parameters for the group-III nitrides
AlN, GaN, and InN, Patrick Rinke et al. Physical Review B
77. (2008)
4. Atlas User’s Manual, Silvaco , 2015
5. Semiconductor Optoelectronic Devices, Introduction to Phys-
ics and Simulation, Joachim Piprek, University of California
at Santa Barbara, Academic Press
6. Trap- tunneling in InGaN/GaN LEDs: experiments and
Figure 14. Simulation of Trap-assisted tunneling. physics-based simulation, NUSOD 2014
7. Trap-assisted tunneling in InGaN/GaN single quantum well
light emitting diodes, M. Auf der Maur, et al., Applied Physics
6. Summary Letters. 105(2014)

We can conclude that new capture-escape model is very

accurate description model for the exact carrier distribu-
tion on both barrier and quantum well . We developed
a self-consistent solution from a Schrodinger-Poisson
solver for 2D bound carrier density in quantum well
and bulk carrier density equation is linked by proper
capture-escape rate equation to simulate the GaN based
LED device. To simulate correctly EQE(or IQE) curve
and efficiency droop, we have to consider exact carrier
density which will affect the radiative and the non-radia-
tive recombination rate in quantum well region through
capture-escape model. Theoretical approaches using k.p
the and capture-escape model are well incorporated into
recent ATLAS device simulation and it is very accurate
model for the carrier dynamics in a multiple quantum
well design.

January, February, March 2016 Page 13 The Simulation Standard