The modern InGaN technology demonstrates high efficiencies only in the blue spectral region and low current operation modes. The growth of InGaN quantum wells (QWs) on nonbasal crystallographic planes (NBP) has potential to deliver high-power blue and green light emitting diodes and lasers. The emission properties of these QWs are largely determined by the localization of carriers in the minima of spatially inhomogeneous band potential, which affects the recombination dynamics, spectral characteristics of the emission, its optical polarization and carrier transport. Understanding it is crucial for increasing the efficiency of NBP structures to their theoretical limit.

In this thesis, the influence of carrier localization on the critical aspects of light emission has been investigated in semipolar  and nonpolar  InGaN QWs. For this purpose, novel multimode scanning near-field optical microscopy configurations have been developed, allowing mapping of the spectrally-, time-, and polarization-resolved emission.

In the nonpolar QW structures the sub-micrometer band gap fluctuations could be assigned to the selective incorporation of indium on different slopes of the undulations, while in the smoother semipolar QWs – to the nonuniformity of QW growth. The nanoscale band potential fluctuations and the carrier localization were found to increase with increasing indium percentage in the InGaN alloy. In spite to the large depth of the potential minima, the localized valence band states were found to retain properties of the corresponding bands. The reduced carrier transfer between localization sites has been suggested as a reason for the long recombination times in the green-emitting semipolar QWs. Sharp increase of the radiative lifetimes has been assigned to the effect of nanoscale electric fields resulting from nonplanar QW interfaces. Lastly, the ambipolar carrier diffusion has been measured, revealing ~100 nm diffusion length and high anisotropy.

The past decade has seen rapid expansion in the use of group III-nitride based devices. White InGaN LEDs are substituting incandescent light bulbs, space satellite industry adopting ion-radiation-resistant GaN transistors, and AlGaN deep UV LEDs are increasingly being used for water disinfection and air purification. Despite this success, performance and efficiency of many devices is still far from optimal with many fundamental material properties still disputed and technological issues not solved. For example, the energy difference between the lowest conduction band valleys in the case of GaN is still being debated, and an efficient white light source of monolithic three-color LED has still not been achieved, due to the poor quantum efficiency of green-emitting quantum wells.

In view of these material challenges, this thesis was dedicated to studies of GaN, InGaN and their quantum wells with the help of time- and spatially- resolved spectroscopy and numerical modeling. This work provides new insights on both the fundamental and the growth-induced properties. Specifically, the energy difference between the lowest conduction band valleys in GaN, a key parameter for electronic devices, has been experimentally evaluated. In addition, electron scattering rates and satellite valley’s effective mass have been estimated by modeling pump-probe transients with rate equations. A study on Fe doped GaN has revealed that, depending on the device operation rate, different Fe+3 states should be considered when modelling GaN:Fe-based optoelectronic devices. Moreover, electron and hole capture coefficients and their temperature dependence have been determined. It has also been demonstrated that the random alloy model could only be used to describe emission and absorption linewidths in the InGaN alloy for a very low-In-content samples. Indium incorporation into the alloy has been found to be affected by the geometry of monolayer step edges that are formed during growth. Time-resolved scanning near-field photoluminescence spectroscopy studies on non-polar and semi-polar InGaN/GaN quantum wells have demonstrated that the common assumption of a spatially uniform radiative recombination rate is not always correct. Finally, it has been found that for a moderate to high-In-content QW the photoluminescence linewidth is defined primarily by variations of alloy composition and not well width fluctuations.