Sub-milliwatt AlGaN nanowire tunnel junction deep ultraviolet light emitting diodes on silicon operating at 242 nm

We report AlGaN nanowire light emitting diodes (LEDs) operating in the ultraviolet-C band. The LED structures are grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Si substrate. It is found that with the use of the n⁺-GaN/Al/p⁺-AlGaN tunnel junction (TJ), the device resistance is reduced by one order of magnitude, and the light output power is increased by two orders of magnitude, compared to AlGaN nanowire LEDs without TJ. For unpackaged TJ ultraviolet LEDs emitting at 242 nm, a maximum output power of 0.37 mW is measured, with a peak external quantum efficiency up to 0.012%.