Significant increase of light emission efficiency by in situ site-selective etching of InGaN quantum wells

An indium post-treatment of the InGaN epilayers was employed for InGaN-to-GaN interface modification. We find that the treatment could lead to selective etching of the InGaN epilayers around threading dislocations (TDs) due to preferential etching of the chemically active step-correlated TDs and formation of indium-rich InGaN nanostructures on the smooth InGaN surface. The intentionally formed V-shaped pits by site-selective etching of the InGaN epilayers resulted in an increased surface potential barrier at the pit sidewalls due to the relatively thin InGaN single quantum well. The increased energy bandgap of the InGaN active layers around the TDs cores caused the lateral carrier confinement away from nonradiative recombination at the defects and thus significantly enhanced the light emission efficiency.