We demonstrate a dramatic reduction of the oscillator strength in ${\mathrm{G}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{N}/\mathrm{A}\mathrm{l}}_x{\mathrm{Ga}}_{1-x}\mathrm{N}$ quantum wells due to piezoelectric fields. Our study using time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy reveals a strong increase of the luminescence decay time of the dominating transition with increasing well width by several orders of magnitude in parallel to a redshift of the emission peaks. The experimental results are consistently explained by a quantitative model based on the piezoelectric fields in strained wurtzite quantum wells. We estimate the piezoelectric constant of GaN to $d_{31}=-0.9\times {10}^{-10}$ cm/V.

• Received 15 December 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.57.R9435