Investigation of the effect of indium mole fractions on recombination processes in AlInGaN layers grown by pulsed MOCVD

Abstract Data are presented on the temperature dependent photoluminescence (PL) and time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) of AlInGaN grown by a pulsed metal organic chemical vapor deposition. The indium mole fractions of our samples are 0–3% and the PL measurement temperatures are 10–300 K. The PL data show that AlInGaN layers with higher indium mole fraction exhibit significantly stronger PL intensities and less intensity reduction to the temperature increase. Analysis of the observed S-shape peak shift (red–blue–red) reveals that the red shift below ∼120 K is real as expected but only the blue shift arises above that temperature. Based on this analysis, we conclude that carrier excitation in the lower energy localized states is responsible for the blue shift. The TRPL data shows that as temperature increases the radiative lifetimes of AlInGaN layers become shorter than those of the AlGaN layer. Based on both the PL intensity and lifetime data, we can conclude that the presence of indium provides more localized states and enhances the luminescence efficiency at room temperature. As a result, the recombination processes in AlInGaN layers are less sensitive to the variation in the temperature.