Investigation of the mechanism of carrier recombination in GaN-based blue laser diodes before lasing

Abstract The carrier recombination behavior of GaN-based blue laser diodes (LDs) is studied and analyzed by experiments and simulation calculations before lasing, with a particular focus on the role of Auger recombination. It is found that Auger recombination plays a crucial role in the decrease in differential efficiency and threshold current of GaN-based blue LDs. The theoretical calculation results show that a large Auger recombination rate may lead to a dominant recombination channel before lasing, which could exceed the radiation recombination and result in an obvious decrease in the differential efficiency. Such a high Auger recombination will dissipate a large number of carriers in the quantum well, resulting in deterioration of device performance, a higher threshold current and a lower efficiency. This work presents a method to evaluate Auger recombination through differential efficiency and also provides evidence that suppressing the Auger recombination rate is beneficial to improve the performance of blue LDs.