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Published August 9, 2017 | Supplemental Material + Accepted Version + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Ultrafast Hot Carrier Dynamics in GaN and its Impact on the Efficiency Droop

Abstract

GaN is a key material for lighting technology. Yet, the carrier transport and ultrafast dynamics that are central in GaN light-emitting devices are not completely understood. We present first-principles calculations of carrier dynamics in GaN, focusing on electron–phonon (e-ph) scattering and the cooling and nanoscale dynamics of hot carriers. We find that e-ph scattering is significantly faster for holes compared to electrons and that for hot carriers with an initial 0.5–1 eV excess energy, holes take a significantly shorter time (∼0.1 ps) to relax to the band edge compared to electrons, which take ∼1 ps. The asymmetry in the hot carrier dynamics is shown to originate from the valence band degeneracy, the heavier effective mass of holes compared to electrons, and the details of the coupling to different phonon modes in the valence and conduction bands. We show that the slow cooling of hot electrons and their long ballistic mean free paths (over 3 nm at room temperature) are a possible cause of efficiency droop in GaN light-emitting diodes. Taken together, our work sheds light on the ultrafast dynamics of hot carriers in GaN and the nanoscale origin of efficiency droop.

Additional Information

© 2017 American Chemical Society. Received: May 25, 2017; Revised: July 20, 2017; Published: July 24, 2017. V.J. thanks the Resnick Sustainibility Institute at Caltech for fellowship support. J.-J.Z. acknowledges support from the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, a DOE Energy Innovation Hub, as follows: the development of the computational methods employed in this work was supported through the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Award No. DE-SC0004993. M.B. acknowledges support by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ACI-1642443, which provided for basic theory and part of the electronphonon coupling code development. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. The authors thank Davide Sangalli for fruitful discussions. Author Contributions: M.B. conceived and designed the research. V.J. and J.-J.Z. developed the computational codes and carried out the calculations. All authors wrote the manuscript. The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Attached Files

Accepted Version - acs.nanolett.7b02212_acc.pdf

Submitted - 1703.07880.pdf

Supplemental Material - nl7b02212_si_001.pdf

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August 19, 2023
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