Temperature-dependent Behaviors of the Surface Plasmon Coupling with an InGaN/GaN Quantum Well

We demonstrate the temperature dependent behavior of the surface plasmon (SP) coupling with an InGaN/GaN quantum well (QW). The SP coupling efficiency relies on the availability of carriers with sufficient momentum for transferring the energy and momentum into the SP modes. At low temperatures, the carriers are trapped by the potential minima in the QW and the SP coupling is weak. As temperature increases, more and more carriers escape from the potential minima leading to the stronger and stronger SP coupling. When the temperature is close to the room condition, the SP coupling strength saturates because most carriers have escaped from the potential minima. The three temperature ranges of different SP coupling behaviors can be clearly identified from the data of photoluminescence (PL) enhancement ratio and PL intensity decay rate.