Microscopic investigations of the optical and structural properties of nonpolar InGaN MQWs on a-plane GaN ELOG structures

We present the optical and structural properties of InGaN MQWs which were grown by MOVPE on fully coalesced lateral epitaxially overgrown (ELOG) a-plane GaN on r-plane sapphire substrate and stripe masks orientated in the [0110] direction. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements exhibit a strong emission from the InGaN MQW at 3.109 eV at 4 K dominating the GaN (D0,X) emission at 3.488 eV by two orders of magnitude. The emission from basal plane stacking faults (BSF) was even more suppressed. Transmission electron microscopy showed a drastic reduction of the BSF in the lateral overgrown area (I) compared to the area of coherent growth (II). μ-PL and highly spatially resolved cathodoluminescence (CL) measurements revealed an intensity increase of the MQW emission by a factor of two for the defect reduced region (I) compared to the defective region (II). Also a blue shift by 20 meV of the MQW peak emission wavelength in the area (I) in comparison with defective area (II) was observed.