Effects of nonradiative centers on localized excitons in InGaN quantum well structures

The authors report the effects of nonradiative recombination on the properties of spatially localized excitons in InGaN quantum well structures studied using a microphotoluminescence (PL) technique. Sharp PL lines (linewidth of less than 1 meV) are clearly obtained by combining the PL and nanolithographic techniques. The PL originates from localized excitons induced by quantum-dot-like local potential minima where indium is accumulated. A systematic study with various kinds of samples reveals that suppressing the density of the nonradiative centers is crucially important in terms of observing the exciton localization effects rather than increasing the effects of indium accumulation.