Importance of strain for green emitters based on (In, Ga)N films of non‐polar orientation

Wurtzite In x Ga 1– x N films, with alloy compositions suitable for obtaining green‐light emitting diodes (LED) and lasers in the wavelength range between 520 and 550 nm, experience compressive anisotropic in‐plane strain when grown on non‐polar ( $1{\bar {1}}00$ ) oriented M ‐plane or ( $11{\bar {2}}0$ ) oriented A ‐plane GaN substrates. The results of calculations of the electronic band structure presented here demonstrate that this strain mixes the valence bands and modifies the emission polarization properties in such a way that lasing characteristics will benefit from it. The advantage improves with partial anisotropic strain relaxation. However, both lasing characteristics and light extraction out of a LED will deteriorate when such a film becomes fully relaxed.