Trace Metal Recombination Centers Kill LED Efficiency (IMAGE)

University of California - Santa Barbara

Trace Metal Recombination Centers Kill LED Efficiency

Caption

This is a schematic illustration of Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) recombination due to iron in GaN. Iron is a deep acceptor with a defect level (black line) close to the GaN conduction band (green). The charge density corresponding to this localized level is illustrated in the middle of the figure. Conventional SRH recombination (left) would proceed via electron capture from the conduction band into the defect level, but the overall rate would be limited by slow capture of holes because the defect level is far from the valence band (blue). The presence of excited states enhances the hole capture rate (right) such that the overall SRH recombination process becomes very efficient.

Credit

Sonia Fernandez

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