Semiconductor Light-Emitting Device With Doped Barrier Layers

The patent applies local quality by creating non-uniform doping distribution within the barrier layers. Specifically, the barrier layers adjacent to the n-type cladding layer are heavily doped with p-type impurities to locally enhance hole supply, while other barrier layers remain lightly doped or undoped. This spatially varying doping strategy ensures that quantum wells near the n-type cladding layer receive sufficient holes for radiative recombination, while maintaining overall device performance.

The patent implements preliminary action by pre-doping the barrier layers with p-type impurities during the epitaxial growth process, before the device operates. This preliminary doping ensures that holes are already present and distributed in the barrier layers before carrier injection begins, allowing quantum wells to immediately access holes for radiative recombination without waiting for hole diffusion from the p-type cladding layer.

The patent applies local quality by creating non-uniform doping distribution within the barrier layers. Specifically, the barrier layers adjacent to the n-type cladding layer are heavily doped with p-type impurities to locally enhance hole supply, while other barrier layers remain lightly doped or undoped. This spatially varying doping strategy ensures that quantum wells near the n-type cladding layer receive sufficient holes for radiative recombination, while maintaining overall device performance.

The patent implements parameter changes by varying the p-type impurity concentration across different barrier layers. The doping concentration is changed from heavy doping in barrier layers near the n-type cladding layer to light or no doping in barrier layers farther away. This parameter variation allows the device to maintain uniform hole distribution across many quantum wells, enabling high brightness without severe carrier waste.

The patent applies segmentation by dividing the barrier layers into different types: heavily doped barrier layers adjacent to the n-type cladding layer and lightly doped or undoped barrier layers elsewhere. This segmentation prevents p-type impurities from being incorporated into the quantum wells themselves, as the doping is confined to specific barrier layer regions. Consequently, non-radiative recombination centers are avoided in the quantum wells while still providing sufficient holes for radiative recombination through the doped barrier layers.

The patent extracts the harmful effect of p-type impurity diffusion by confining the doping to barrier layers only, separating the hole supply function from the quantum well regions. The heavily doped barrier layers serve as localized hole reservoirs that supply holes to adjacent quantum wells without allowing impurities to contaminate the quantum wells themselves, thus eliminating non-radiative recombination centers while maintaining brightness enhancement.