Impact of growth temperature on heterostructure interface steepness in ultraviolet-B AlGaN-based laser diodes

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This study investigates the steepness of the heterostructure interface between the p-side optical-waveguide and electron blocking layer (EBL) in ultraviolet-B (UV-B) laser diodes (LDs), focusing on the impact of growth temperature. The results revealed that lowering the growth temperature significantly reduced the thickness of the “unintended compositionally graded layer” a diffusion layer formed at the interface through solid-phase diffusion. However, a bottleneck also existed in LDs with extremely steep interfaces, where the diode characteristics could not be obtained due to the device's high resistance. This study highlights the trade-off between the steepness of the interfaces in the AlGaN heterostructure and diode performance, indicating the need for further optimization to achieve high-performance UV-B LDs. Specifically, future efforts should focus on refining growth conditions to reduce impurity concentrations resulting from low-temperature growth and controlling the thickness of individual layers, such as the EBL, to address high resistance and achieve high-performance UV-B LDs.