Measurement of radiative and nonradiative recombination rates in InGaAsP and AlGaAs light sources

A small signal method is used to measure the carrier lifetime as a function of injected carrier density, and the results are used to determine the radiative and nonradiative recombination rates for AlGaAs LED's and 1.3 μm InGaAsP lasers. For AlGaAs LED's the radiative recombination constant decreases with injected carrier density and the rate equation contains a small nonradiative Cn
³
term. The low internal efficiency of 1.3 μm InGaAsP lasers is found to be primarily caused by two factors: a radiative coefficient
B(n)
which strongly decreases with the injected carrier density, and CHHS Auger recombination having a recombination coefficient of
1-2 \times 10^{-29}
cm
⁶
/s. A recombination term representing carrier leakage is observed in some devices, but it is not the principal cause of low internal efficiency.