The Effect of Dislocations in Ga1 − x Al x As : Si Light‐Emitting Diodes

Abstract

Dislocations in LED's were studied and found to have a pronounced effect upon the external quantum efficiency of the diodes. A simple theoretical model, based on the postulation that the dislocations act as effective nonradiative recombination centers, is proposed to explain the experimental results. It is observed that the dislocation configuration in the epitaxial layers copies that of the substrate wafers, and that screening substrate wafers is extremely useful in the consistent fabrication of high efficiency LED's.