A comparative analysis of the photoluminescence spectra of annealed ultrasmall In-rich InGaN/GaN quantum dots and wells

Interdiffusion in InGaN/GaN nanostructures may occur during growth and subsequent device processing steps which includes annealing. This affects their photoluminescence (PL) spectra significantly, especially when the dimensions are in the ultra-nanometre regime. Owing to the persisting technological importance of group III Nitride based optoelectronic devices, in this paper, we present a comparative analysis of the PL spectra of annealed InGaN/GaN ultrathin In-rich (UTIR) quantum wells (QWs) and ultrasmall In-rich (USIR) quantum dots (QDs) by taking into account the changes in the energy band profiles due to annealing and interdiffusion. Quantum mechanical computations were carried out to investigate the impact of some widely varying fundamental properties of InGaN/GaN heterostructures on the PL peak energies of annealed UTIR QWs and USIR QDs, as may be quantitatively helpful for distinguishing the growth of these nanostructures.