Abstract. Polarization effects on quantum states in InN/GaN quantum wells have been investigated by means of ab initio calculation and spectroscopic ellipsometry. Through the position-dependent partial densities of states, our results show that the polarization modified by the strain with different well thickness leads to an asymmetry band bending of the quantum well. The quantum levels are identified via the band structures and their square wavefunction distributions are analyzed by the partial charge densities. Further theoretical and experimental comparison of the imaginary part of the dielectric function show that the overall transition probability increases under larger polarization fields, which can be attributable to the fact that the excited quantum states of 2h have a greater overlap with 1e states and enhance other hole quantum states in the well by a hybridization. These results would provide a new approach to improve the transition probability and light emission by enhancing the polarization fields in a proper way.

Print publication: Issue 48 (2 December 2009)
Received 27 April 2009, in final form 27 July 2009
Published 4 November 2009