Temperature-dependent Radiative Lifetimes of Excitons in Non-polar GaN/AlGaN Quantum Wells

Nonpolar GaN/AlGaN multiple quantum wells (MQW) have shown an improved quantum efficiency due to better wave function overlap in the absence of the large polarization fields normally found in their c-plane counterparts. Here we report theoretical and experimental studies of radiative recombination of carriers in GaN quantum wells grown on low defect a-plane GaN templates fabricated by lateral epitaxial overgrowth. The calculated radiative rates are presented as functions of temperature and well width. We also evaluated the dependence of the radiative lifetimes on carrier density in the quantum well by including effects of screening and phase-space filling in the evaluation of the exciton oscillator strength