The effect of temperature and excitation power on the characteristics of InGaN/GaN single quantum well (SQW) and multiple quantum well (MQW) light-emitting diodes (LED) has been investigated in-depth over a broad range of temperatures from 9 to 300 K. It was found that the device with a stair-shaped SQW structure exhibited stronger localization effect, as well as had higher internal quantum efficiency than that of the conventional MQW and SQW LEDs. This is interpreted as due to the stair-shaped SQW configuration, which offered a large contribution to the exciton capturing. The adoption of an appropriate heterostructure in active region allows the achievement of improved LED performance. With increasing the excitation power intensity, QW photoluminescence (PL) line broadening and emission peak blue shifts were observed, which are assumed to be caused by the disordering formed in the In-rich hetero structures of QW ensembles. We expect that distinct degree of carrier localization occurs in these samples. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.