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GaN nanocolumns are extensively studied as promising nano-materials for high-performance visible emitters because of their dislocation filtering and strain relaxation effects. The size and position of nanocolumns were precisely controlled using Ti-mask selective-area growth (SAG) by RF-MBE, fabricating uniform arrays of pn-junction InGaN/GaN nanocolumns. The periodic arrangement in the nanocolumn arrays led to nanocolumn photonic crystal (PhC) effect. It is however, necessary to integrate a wave-guiding scheme in the nanocolumn system to activate efficiently the PhCs. In the experiment, triangle-lattice GaN nanocolumn arrays with the lattice constant from 280 to 350 nm were grown, followed by the growth of InGaN/GaN superlattice buffer, MQW, and p-type GaN cladding layers. In the upper region of pn-junction nanocolumns from SL to p-GaN, the nanocolumn diameter increased and introduced the increase in the equivalent refractive index, which acts to confine the optical field there. Thus, the optical mode propagated laterally, interacting with the nanocolumn PhC. The diffraction at the photonic band edge resulted in high-directional beam radiations from the nanocolumn system. The photonic band edge was systematically investigated for various nanocolumn arrays with L=280–250 nm. The experimental photonic band diagram for the triangular-lattice pn-junction InGaN/GaN nanocolumn array exhibited a clear photonic band edge.
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