Anomalous temperature characteristics of single wide quantum well InGaN laser diode

Abstract

By using an atypically wide quantum well (95Å) in the active layer of InGaN violet light emitting laser diode, we managed to fabricate a device characterized by very high thermal stability of the threshold current. The characteristic T0 temperature was measured to be 302K, which is the highest reported value up to date. After thermal cycling of the device, T0 drops down to the lower value of 220K. The very high value of T0 in our devices is accompanied by anomalous temperature behavior of the device slope efficiency. The slope efficiency improves with increasing temperature, reaches a maximum and then gradually decreases. This behavior we interpret as the competition between a regular increase of the thermal carrier escape and an improvement of carrier capture efficiency with an opposite temperature dependence. The latter mechanism we tentatively attribute to the temperature quenching of the ballistic transport related carrier leakage from the active region of the laser diode.