Local indium segregation and bang gap variations in high efficiency green light emitting InGaN/GaN diodes

High efficient green light emitting diodes (LED) on the basis of GaN/InGaN exhibit indium-rich nanoclusters inside the quantum wells (QW) due to InN–GaN phase decomposition. By direct measurements of the variations in the electronic structure, we show for the first time a correlation between indium-rich nanoclusters and local energy band gap minima. Our investigations reveal the presence of 1–3 nm wide indium rich clusters in these devices with indium concentrations x as large as x∼0.30–0.40 that narrow the band gap locally to energies as small as 2.65 eV. These clusters are able to act as local traps for migrating photon-emitting carriers and seem to boost the overall device performance.