Shockley-Read-Hall and Auger non-radiative recombination in GaN based LEDs: A size

effect study
Francois Olivier, Anis Daami, Christophe Licitra, and Francois Templier

Citation: Appl. Phys. Lett. 111, 022104 (2017); doi: 10.1063/1.4993741

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4993741
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/apl/111/2
Published by the American Institute of Physics

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 APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 111, 022104 (2017)

Shockley-Read-Hall and Auger non-radiative recombination in GaN based

LEDs: A size effect study
Francois Olivier, Anis Daami, Christophe Licitra, and Francois Templier
University Grenoble Alpes, CEA, LETI, MINATEC Campus, 38054 Grenoble, France and III-V Lab,
38000 Grenoble, France
(Received 20 April 2017; accepted 29 June 2017; published online 13 July 2017)
GaN-based micro light-emitting diode (lLED) arrays are very promising devices for display appli-
cations. In these arrays, each lLED works as a single pixel of a whole image. The electro-optical
performance of these lLEDs is an important subject to study. Here, we investigate the influence of
LED size on the radiative and non-radiative recombination. The standard ABC model has been
widely used to describe the efficiency of GaN based LEDs. Using this model, we extract A, B, and
C coefficients for various LED sizes, showing how the competition between radiative and
non-radiative recombination processes varies with the LED geometry. Time-resolved photolumi-
nescence allows us to determine coefficient B, related to radiative recombination. Through
current-voltage-luminance characterizations, we determine parameters A and C related to
Shockley-Read-Hall and Auger recombination. We find that coefficient A is strongly dependent
on LED size, indicating a drastic effect of sidewall defects on the performance of LEDs. On the
other hand, coefficient C is independent of LED size. This latter result demonstrates that efficiency
droop does not depend on LED size. Published by AIP Publishing.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4993741]

GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are very prom-
ising light sources for lighting and display applications. The
growing interest for wearable devices and their numerous
applications (augmented reality, head-up displays, etc.) has
highlighted the need for high-performance micro-displays.
Today’s smaller pixel pitch in LED micro-displays is typi-
cally 10 lm.1 As a result, the comprehension of the relation-
ship between the size and performance of a LED is an
important subject to study. LED efficiency is a competition
between the radiative and non-radiative recombination. Two
main sources of non-radiative recombination are attributed
to Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) and Auger recombination.2
When reducing the dimension of the LED, both effects
become critical and require thorough understanding. SRH
recombination is thought to be dependent of the LED size
due to a high density of surface states. Through literature,
studies indicate that smaller LEDs present higher current
densities,3 indicating possible non-radiative recombination
and/or high leakage current. It is also known that edges are a
strong perturbation of the periodicity of a crystal lattice. This
induces electronic states within the semiconductor gap, act-
ing as non-radiative recombination centers.2 On the other
hand, the so-called “efficiency droop” limits the efficiency of
GaN-based LEDs at high current densities. Smaller LEDs
exhibit higher current densities and are therefore more sub-
ject to this droop effect. The standard ABC model has been
widely used to describe the efficiency of GaN-based LEDs.4
In this model, each coefficient, A, B, and C, is related to
different types of recombination that are Shockley-Read-
Hall (SRH) non-radiative, radiative, and Auger non-
radiative, respectively. Several groups have studied the influ-
ence of the size on the electro-optical performances of GaN-
based LEDs. Some literature results indicate that decreasing
the LED size leads to lower efficiencies at low current
densities and higher efficiency values at high current levels.
Low efficiency is generally attributed to a high SRH recom-
bination5 while the upper values at high current densities are
generally credited to an optimized light extraction efficiency
(LEE).6 Herrnsdorf et al.7 suggested that a good thermal
budget due to a better current distribution also has a benefit
on efficiency. Nonetheless, these results are often based on
the study of efficiency as a function of current density with-
out extraction of parameters A, B, and C. Different extrac-
tion methods have been reported to define parameters of the
ABC model and carrier lifetime. One commonly used
method is based on differential carrier lifetime measure-
ments where the carrier lifetime is related to the phase shift
between the collected emitted light signal and the injected
electrical current into the LED itself, at a certain AC signal
frequency.8,9 However, extraction of A, B, and C parameters
with regard to the LED size has not been evaluated. We
believe that the extraction and analysis of these parameters
versus the device size will allow a more consistent compre-
hension of the performances of GaN-based LEDs.
In this work, we propose an extraction method to deter-
mine A, B, and C coefficients, allowing the analysis of GaN-
based LEDs efficiency, for different sizes ranging from
500  500 to 4  4 lm2. We have shown in previous work10
the influence of size-reduction on the electro-optical charac-
teristics of LEDs, and the importance of having homoge-
neous light emission across the whole LED surface.
Experimental results presented in this study are obtained on
LEDs with homogeneous light emission at all current density
levels. Indeed, any inhomogeneous light emission reveals
inhomogeneous current injection, which results in a shift of
efficiency curves towards higher current densities. This leads
to an improper determination of ABC parameters. The coef-
ficient for radiative recombination B is determined from

0003-6951/2017/111(2)/022104/5/$30.00 111, 022104-1 Published by AIP Publishing.

022104-2 Olivier et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 111, 022104 (2017)

time-resolved photo-luminescence (TRPL) at 5 K. Based on

current-voltage-luminance (IVL) characterizations and equa-
tions derived from the ABC model, we extract the values of
coefficients A and C related to non-radiative SRH and Auger
recombination, for all LED sizes.
Commercially available 4 in. InGaN/GaN wafers, grown
on non-patterned c-plane sapphire substrates by metalorganic
chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), are used to carry out
our study. The epitaxial structure consists of a Mg-doped P-
GaN layer, a multiple quantum well (MQW) region, consist-
ing of five InGaN QWs with a nominal thickness of 3 nm
sandwiched between GaN barriers, and a Si-doped N-GaN
layer. These wafers have been processed to obtain square-
shaped LEDs of various sizes, via a self-aligned process
along with a combination of damascene metallization steps.
A detailed presentation of the fabrication process can be
found elsewhere.11
IVL characterizations were carried out using a micro-
probe station connected to a voltage source. Optical power
(Popt) is measured by means of a photodiode placed on the
sapphire side of the LED. TRPL spectra were obtained using
a 376 nm pulsed laser, operating at a frequency of 40 MHz,
with a pulse duration of 100 ps. The luminescence signal is
collected via a single-photon avalanche diode.
According to the ABC model, the internal quantum effi-
ciency (IQE) is expressed in terms of coefficients A, B, and
C and the carrier concentration n as

B  n2
IQE ¼ ; (1)
A  n þ B  n2 þ C  n3 FIG. 1. (a) Normalized photoluminescence intensity map of a 7 lm pixel:
Intensity level (red line) is uniform across the pixel surface (white dashed
while current density J is expressed as line) showing no peripheral effect or PL degradation. (b) TRPL intensity
decay curve used for the extraction of radiative coefficient B. A carrier life-
time s of 4.9 ns is extracted from the fitting equation.
J ¼ q  w  ð A  n þ B  n2 þ C  n3 Þ; (2)

where w is the total quantum wells’ thickness and q is the

elementary charge.
This simple model assumes that Auger recombination is
the cause of the efficiency droop. However, other hypotheses
are proposed, such as delocalization of carriers12 or saturated
radiative recombination rate.13 Recently, Meng et al.9 sug-
gested that Auger recombination cannot be the unique origin
of droop, and that carrier leakage seemed to play a more
important role at a high injection level. The origin of droop
in GaN-based LEDs is beyond the scope of this study. We
do then consider Auger recombination as the principal cause
of the droop in accordance with the ABC model.
The photoluminescence measurements carried out on
different pixel sizes have shown that the PL intensity is uni-
form across the pixel surface even for very small LED sizes.
In Fig. 1(a), we show the PL intensity map of a micro-LED
(7 lm side). No degradation due to peripheral effects is evi-
denced even for this small geometry. Therefore, we can
make the hypothesis that coefficient B is not dependent on
the LED size. This assumption can be accepted as most radi-
ative recombination occurs in MQW region, which is related
to the epitaxial quality of the InGaN/GaN layers. We plot in
Fig. 1(b) the normalized TRPL intensity decay curve at 5 K.
Considering a mono-exponential decay curve, we obtain a
carrier lifetime s of 4.9 ns. Knowing that only radiative
recombination occurs at this temperature, the carrier lifetime
is only related to the radiative recombination rate coefficient
B by
1
B¼ : (3)
s  nopt
The injected optical power and spot size are 1.6 mW and 1 lm2,
respectively. Considering a quantum well region of 15 nm, we
find an optical injected carrier density nopt ¼ 2  1019 cm3.
This leads us to a value of B ¼ 1  1011 cm3 s1. This value
is in good agreement with literature values of coefficient
B.14,15
In order to extract coefficients A and C, we have performed
IVL characterizations for various LED sizes, ranging from
500  500 lm2 to 4  4 lm2. These measurements help us to
determine the external quantum efficiency (EQE), defined as
Popt  q
EQE ¼ ¼ IQE  LEE; (4)
hI
where h is the Planck’s constant,  is the frequency, I is the
injected current, and LEE is the light extraction efficiency.
In order to estimate this light extraction efficiency in
our structures, we have carried out simulations on different
LED sizes ranging from 500 lm to 2 lm using ray-tracing
022104-3 Olivier et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 111, 022104 (2017)

ZEMAX software. The extraction efficiency values plotted

in Fig. 2 show that LEE is almost independent of the LED
size and has an average value of 14%. Consequently, Eq. (4)
allows us to calculate the IQE for all measured devices.
Using expressions (1) and (2), we can express the carrier
density n as
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
IQE  J
n¼ : (5)
qwB
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
IQE  J
1
Putting Y ¼ IQE ;X¼ qw , a ¼ BC3=2 , and b ¼ BA1=2 ; we
obtain a simplified expression of IQE written as

b
Y ¼aXþ þ 1: (6)
X
Equation (6) implicitly shows that coefficient A (hence b)
and coefficient C (hence a) will have an important effect at
lower and higher current densities, respectively. Therefore,
the extraction of parameters A and C can easily be under-
taken under different current density ranges by neglecting in
Eq. (6) one parameter or the other, which finally gives us
two adjusting simple equations

Ya ¼ a  Xa þ 1; (7a)
b
Yb ¼ þ 1; (7b)
Xb

where a and b are related to high and low current densities,

respectively.
We plot in Fig. 3 an example of the extraction of param-
eters a and b for a 100  100 lm2 sized LED. One can see a
good adjustment between measurement results and the fitting
equation endorsing our splitting hypothesis of Eq. (6).
Following the adjustment with Eqs. (7a) and (7b), we
can determine coefficients A and C. We have determined
values of A ¼ 3.7  106 s1 and C ¼ 2.6  1031 cm6 s1, for
a typical LED size of 100  100 lm2. These extracted values
are in good agreement with those announced for InGaN/GaN
blue LEDs for both A and C values.16–19 Indeed, A and C
values in literature are found in the ranges of 106–107 s1
and 1032–1030 cm6 s1, respectively.
FIG. 3. Example of extraction of coefficients a (a) and b (b) on a 100
100 lm2 LED. Measurement points are well adjusted with the fitting equations.
Figure 4 shows the experimental IQE data of the
100  100 lm2 sized LED and its adjustment by the ABC
model after determining all coefficients. We obtain a good fit
of all data in all current ranges. At a low current density, the
small mismatch between experimental data is mainly attrib-
uted to the experimental error in the measurement of very
low optical power mainly due to intrinsic dark current of the
measuring photodiode.

FIG. 4. Experimental and fitted IQE as a function of current density for a

FIG. 2. Simulated light extraction efficiency (LEE) versus LED sizes vary- 100  100 lm2 sized LED. A good agreement is observed in all current den-
ing from 500 lm to 2 lm. LEE shows an almost constant value around 14%. sity regions.
022104-4 Olivier et al.
With parameters A, B, and C fixed, we can now get
back to the carrier concentration at each current density level
using Eq. (5). This gives us values ranging from
6  1015 cm3 to 3  1019 cm3, which are in accordance
with typical values of the carrier density in GaN LEDs.20,21
We have applied our extraction method to all our LED
sizes, varying from 500  500 lm2 to 4  4 lm2. Figure 5
shows the values of coefficients A and C, plotted versus
LED size. Multiple LEDs of the same size have been charac-
terized to test the robustness of our extraction method. We
can see that we have reasonable spreading values validating
our extraction method.
The first observation to be made is that coefficient A
sharply increases, by a factor of almost two decades, with
decreasing LED dimensions. This is not the case concerning
coefficient C which is nearly independent of LED size. This
latter result means that the droop effect is independent of the
LED size. In other words, droop is only related to the epitaxial
quality of the device. This also supports the idea that Auger
recombination may be one of its main origin. This result
implies a fundamental consequence: increasing the EQE of
lLEDs can only be achieved through an enhancement of light
extraction efficiency and a possible better thermal manage-
ment, as IQE droop is a common limitation for all LED sizes.
In order to further investigate the variations of coeffi-
cient A, we plot in Fig. 6 the values of coefficient A versus
the ratio perimeter/surface.
Results show a linear dependence of this parameter.
This suggests to a certain point that non-radiative
FIG. 5. Extracted coefficients A (a) and C (b) plotted versus LED size.
Coefficient A shows a large dependence on LED size in contrary to coeffi-
cient C that almost shows a constant value.
Appl. Phys. Lett. 111, 022104 (2017)
FIG. 6. Coefficients A plotted versus the ratio perimeter/surface. The clear
linear dependence shows that coefficient A, i.e. SRH nonradiative recombi-
nation, is principally correlated to LED perimeter.
recombination at a low current density is related to LED
sidewalls rather than its volume. Therefore, efforts must be
undertaken to reduce the sidewall defects that might be detri-
mental to the electro-optical characteristics of LEDs. It is
then important to understand from above results that for a
certain InGaN/GaN epitaxial quality, the droop in efficiency
will remain unchanged at high current densities whatever be
the LED size. Meanwhile, at low current densities, EQE will
be size dependent due to SRH non-radiative recombination.
This is the main issue to address when processing micro-
sized LEDs. Indeed, process steps like mesa etching have to
be undertaken carefully in order to minimize the presence of
eventual dangling bonds and defects that can be produced
and therefore work as non-radiative recombination centers.
Sidewall passivation techniques could be one important key
towards solving this topic and thus reducing non-radiative
losses. This will certainly allow a real advance in the lLED
technologies for display applications that are tending
towards very small pixel sizes.
In summary, we have determined recombination coeffi-
cients of the ABC model on different LED sizes by IVL and
TRPL measurements. Parameter B is calculated from time
resolved photoluminescence decay through the measurement
of carrier lifetime at 5 K, while parameters A and C are
determined by a simple extraction method based on IVL
characterization. This model is particularly well suited for
the study of GaN-based LEDs’ size effects. We have shown
that non-radiative SRH-like recombination is related to the
LED perimeter and intensifies as LED size decreases.
Meanwhile, coefficient C, generally related to Auger effect,
has been found to be a constant whatever be the pixel size,
indicating that efficiency droop is mostly related to the qual-
ity of the InGaN/GaN epitaxy.
The authors would like to thank Ludovic Dupre for
sample preparation. This work was supported by the French
National Research Agency (ANR) through a Carnot funding.
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