Reduced degradation in InxGa1−xAs electroluminescent diodes

Abstract

Lifetests at 1000 A/cm² have been carried out on In_xGa_1−xAs (0<x2 bias. In addition, lifetest results for a few vapor‐grown GaAs_1−xP_x and In_xGa_1−xP electroluminescent diodes are consistent with the strong exponential dependence of degradation rate on emission energy observed for the In_xGa_1−xAs diodes. This effect has been found to be independent of large differences in growth technique, dislocation density, and initial electroluminescence efficiency. Moreover, p‐n junctions of In_xGa_1−xAs have been found to be relatively insensitive to fabrication and device‐mounting procedures that are known to be deleterious to similarly prepared diodes of GaAs. Finally, a study of the I‐V characteristics and minority‐carrier lifetime shows that the observed degradation is a bulk phenomenon.