A study of piezoelectric field related strain difference in GaN-based blue light-emitting diodes grown on silicon(111) and sapphire substrates

We investigate the strain difference in InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells of blue light-emitting diode (LED) structures grown on silicon(111) and c-plane sapphire substrates by comparing the strength of piezo-electric fields in MQWs. The piezo-electric fields for two LED samples grown on silicon and sapphire substrates are measured by using the reverse-bias electro-reflectance (ER) spectroscopy. The flat-band voltage is obtained by measuring the applied reverse bias voltage that induces a phase inversion in the ER spectra, which is used to calculate the strength of piezo-electric fields. The piezo-electric field is determined to be 1.36 MV/cm for the LED on silicon substrate and 1.83 MV/cm for the LED on sapphire substrate. The ER measurement results indicate that the strain-induced piezo-electric field is greatly reduced in the LED grown on silicon substrates consistent with previous strain measurement results by micro-Raman spectroscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy.