Ultraviolet (UV) light emission at 229 nm wavelength from diode structures based on AlN/Al0.77Ga0.23N quantum wells and using p-type Si to significantly increase hole injection was reported. Both electrical and optical characteristics were measured. Owing to the large concentration of holes from p-Si and efficient hole injection, no efficiency droop was observed up to a current density of 76 A/cm2 under continuous wave operation and without external thermal management. An optical output power of 160 uW was obtained with corresponding external quantum efficiency of 0.027%. This study demonstrates that by adopting p-type Si nanomembrane contacts as hole injector, practical levels of hole injection can be realized in UV light-emitting diodes with very high Al composition AlGaN quantum wells, enabling emission wavelengths and power levels that were previously inaccessible using traditional p-i-n structures with poor hole injection efficiency.
@article{arxiv.1708.03973,
title = {229 nm UV LEDs using p-type silicon for increased hole injection},
author = {Dong Liu and Sang June Cho and Jeongpil Park and Jung-Hun Seo and Rafael Dalmau and Deyin Zhao and Kwangeun Kim and Munho Kim and In-Kyu Lee and John D. Albrecht and Weidong Zhou and Baxter Moody and Zhenqiang Ma},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.03973},
year = {2018}
}