Toward highly radiative white light emitting nanostructures: a new approach to dislocation-eliminated GaN/InGaN core–shell nanostructures with a negligible polarization field

Abstract

White light emitting InGaN nanostructures hold a key position in future solid-state lighting applications. Although many suggested approaches to form group III-nitride vertical structures have been reported, more practical and cost effective methods are still needed. Here, we present a new approach to GaN/InGaN core–shell nanostructures at a wafer level formed by chemical vapor-phase etching and metal–organic chemical vapor deposition. Without a patterning process, we successfully obtained high quality and polarization field minimized In-rich GaN/InGaN core–shell nanostructures. The various quantum well thicknesses and the multi-facets of the obelisk-shaped core–shell nanostructures provide a broad spectrum of the entire visible range without changing the InGaN growth temperature. Due to their high crystal quality and polarization field reduction, the core–shell InGaN quantum wells show an ultrafast radiative recombination time of less than 200 ps and uniformly high internal quantum efficiency in the broad spectral range. We also investigated the important role of polarization fields in the complex recombination dynamics in InGaN quantum wells.