Enhanced carrier injection in InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells LED with polarization-induced electron blocking barrier

•A novel LED structure with polarization-induced barrier (PIB) was designed.•Numerical study shows enhanced carrier injections in the PIB LED.•Significant improvement in quantum efficiency of the PIB LED compared with the conventional LED with an AlGaN electron blocking layer.

In this report, we designed a light emitting diode (LED) structure in which an N-polar p-GaN layer is grown on top of Ga-polar In0.1Ga0.9N/GaN quantum wells (QWs) on an n-GaN layer. Numerical simulation reveals that the large polarization field at the polarity inversion interface induces a potential barrier in the conduction band, which can block electron overflow out of the QWs. Compared with a conventional LED structure with an Al0.2Ga0.8N electron blocking layer (EBL), the proposed LED structure shows much lower electron current leakage, higher hole injection, and a significant improvement in the internal quantum efficiency (IQE). These results suggest that the polarization induced barrier (PIB) is more effective than the AlGaN EBL in suppressing electron overflow and improving hole transport in GaN-based LEDs.