Part III – March 1968 - Papers - Electroluminescence of Vapor-Grown GaAs and GaAs1-x Px Diodes

External quantum efficiency measurements at 300" and 77°K are presented for vapor-grown GaAs and GaAs1-xPx electroluminescent diodes as a function of junction depth and doping. In GaAs, external efficiencies are found to decrease exponentially with increasing junction depth, defining an average absorption coefficient of 900 cm-1 at 300°K and 350 cm-1 at 77°Kfor epitaxial layers of p-type GaAs. It is shown that photon absorption losses dominate at room temperature and, in fact, account for most of the external efficiency degradation between 77° and 300°K. Healever, the internal ('junction) quantum efficiency is also found to decrease by a factor of 3.5 between 77" ALTHOUGH rapid progress has been made in recent years with GaAs, Gap, and their alloys for use in electroluminescent diodes, there are still important unknown factors related to the performance of these de- and 300°K. The dependence of GaAs efficiencies on donor and acceptor concentrations is presented, illustrating best efficiencies at donor concentrations of 1.5 to 2x 1018 cm-3 . External efficiencies are found to be independent of acceptor concentrations less than 3 x 1019 cm-3 but to degrade at higher doping. The fabrication of GaAsi-xPx electroluminescent diodes is briefly discussed. External efficiencies here for planar uncoated diodes are about 0.035 pct at 300°K and 0.4 pct at 77°for x = 0.42. A brightness of about 8500 ft-Lamberts is attained at 77°K and of 315 ft-Lamberts at 300° K. for curvent densities of 10 amp per sq cm. vices. For example, although the external efficiency is known to decrease by factors of typically 10 to 30 between 77°K and room temperature, the exact causes of this are still uncertain. Experimental results of ill' and carr2 with zinc-diffused electroluminescent diodes suggest that this external degradation is almost entirely due to increased absorption losses at room temperature, with a relatively temperature-independent internal efficiency; recent calculations by Gonda et al.3 corroborate this hypothesis. In contrast, Pilkuhn and Rupprecht4 find the internal efficiency of solution-grown GaAs laser diodes to degrade from 100 to 66 to 40 pct as the temperature is increased from