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Recently, several groups have investigated the aspects of positive and negative luminescence behavior in infrared materials. Under forward bias voltage, charge carriers are injected into the active region of a p-n junction, giving rise to positive luminescence. In contrast, a p-n junction under reverse bias conditions can exhibit negative luminescence caused by a reduction of the electron-hole recombination of the device, such that the photon flux is below that of the black body emission in equilibrium. In the present work, we show measurements of both positive and negative luminescence of binary Type II InAs/GaSb superlattice photodiodes in the 3 to 13 µm spectral range. Through a radiometric calibration technique, we demonstrate temperature independent negative luminescence efficiencies of 45 % in the midwavelength (MWIR) sample from 220 K to 320 K without anti-reflective coating and values reaching 35 % in the long wavelength infrared (LWIR) spectrum sample. With the radiative recombination constant obtained in the framework of k p theory a model is obtained to describe the temperature dependent behavior of the results near thermal equilibrium in both samples. In the long wavelength regime, we demonstrate that the dominant non-radiative recombination channel in n-type material is Auger recombination with an electron-hole-electron (CHCC) Auger recombination coefficient of C_n = 1 x 10²⁴ cm⁶s^-1. While in the mid wavelength infrared window, the primary non-radiative recombination is Shockley-Read-Hall recombination giving rise to a p-type residual background capture cross-section of _n = 7 x 10^-16 cm2.

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