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Terahertz radiation emission from an electrically excited AlGaN/GaN heterostructure with a surface metal grating was studied under conditions of two-dimensional (2D) electron heating by the lateral electric field. Intensive peaks related to nonequilibrium 2D plasmons were revealed in the terahertz emission spectra with up to 4 times selective amplification of the radiation emission in the vicinity of 2D plasmon resonance. This selective emission was shown to be frequency-controllable by the grating period. Exact spectral positions of the 2D plasmon resonances were preliminarily experimentally detected with the help of equilibrium transmission spectra measured at various temperatures. The resonance positions are in a satisfactory agreement with the results of theoretical simulation of the transmission spectra performed using a rigorous solution of Maxwell's equations. The effective temperature of hot 2D electrons was determined by means of I – V characteristics and their analysis using the power balance equation. It was shown that for a given electric field, the effective temperature of nonequilibrium 2D plasmons is close to the hot 2D electron temperature. The work may have applications in GaN-based electrically pumped emitters of terahertz radiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the optical properties of periodic InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well systems with different numbers of periods. A resonant increase in the optical reflection and simultaneous suppression of the optical absorption have been revealed experimentally at room temperature when the Bragg and exciton resonances were tuned to each other. Numerical modeling with a single set of parameters gave a quantitatively accurate fit of the experimental reflection and transmission spectra in a wide wavelength range and various angles of the light incidence. The model included both exciton resonance and non-resonant band-to-band transitions in the InGaN quantum wells, as well as Rayleigh light scattering in the GaN buffer layer. The analysis also involved x-ray diffraction and photoluminescence data. It allowed us to determine the key parameters of the structure. In particular, the radiative broadening of the InGaN QW excitons was evaluated as 0.20 ± 0.02 meV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]