Degradation by sidewall recombination centers in GaN blue micro-LEDs at diameters<30 µm

A matrix of blue GaN/InGaN multi-quantum-well (MQW) micro-Light-Emitting Diodes (micro-LEDs) with diode dimensions ranging from 2 to 100 µm was prepared by masked dry etching and characterized by Photoluminescence (PL), Microcathodoluminescence (MCL), capacitance-voltage profiling in the dark and under monochromatic illumination, current-voltage measurements, admittance spectra, Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy with electrical (DLTS) and optical (ODLTS) injection. The changes observed in the PL, MCL spectra are due to the formation of deep hole traps at Ev+ 0.75 eV and electron traps at Ec-1 eV in the sidewalls of the micro-LEDs. The former give rise to the red defect band peaked near 600 nm and contribute to the increase of tunneling and leakage current with decreasing the diode diameter. The latter are prominent centers of nonradiative recombination. •DLTS spectra demonstrate an increase of the density of deep acceptors at Ev+ 0.7 eV and Ev+ 0.75 eV as the diode diameter decreases from 100 to 30 µm.•These deep acceptors have attributed to either carbon on nitrogen site CN acceptors or to gallium vacancy complexes with shallow donors, VGa-D.•Experiments with LED degradation point to these being responsible for enhanced tunneling and increased leakage current. Experiments favor the attribution of the deep acceptors to VGa-D defects rather than to CN•This mechanism explains the strong decrease in external quantum efficiency of micro-LEDs for diameters below ~30 µm, as the effect of trap states in the sidewalls becomes dominant.•The reported observation could form a basis for improvement of EQE of GaN-based micro-LEDs.