Charge Profiling of the p-AlGaN Electron Blocking Layer in AlGaInN Light Emitting Diode Structures

Characterization of operational AlGaInN heterostructure light emitting diodes (LEDs) is critical to their performance optimization and time-to-failure analysis. Typically, device performance data needs to be corroborated with structural information such as layer thicknesses, charge profiles, and the absolute location of the pn-junction. Here, non-destructive testing by capacitance-voltage profiling is being applied to AlGaInN LED structures. Within a large set of samples with different active layer geometry, we observe distinct layers of high mobile charge accumulation. We correlate those with layer thicknesses derived from an x-ray diffraction analysis of the corresponding epiwafers. In this way, we identify the charge maxima as the upper and lower interfaces of the p-type AlGaN electron blocking layer to the neighboring GaN layers. By means of this successful analysis, we now have the opportunity to monitor epi process performance and stability as well as device degradation progress quasi-continuously over the device lifetime in a non-destructive mode.