Transport-mechanism analysis of the reverse leakage current in GaInN light-emitting diodes

Abstract

The reverse leakage current of a GaInN light-emitting diode (LED) is analyzed by temperature dependent current–voltage measurements. At low temperature, the leakage current is attributed to variable-range-hopping conduction. At high temperature, the leakage current is explained by a thermally assisted multi-step tunneling model. The thermal activation energies (95–162 meV), extracted from the Arrhenius plot in the high-temperature range, indicate a thermally activated tunneling process. Additional room temperature capacitance–voltage measurements are performed to obtain information on the depletion width and doping concentration of the LED.