We present a polarization, spectrally, and spatially resolved near-field photoluminescence (PL) measurement technique and apply it to the study of wide m-plane InxGa1−xN/GaN quantum wells grown on on-axis and miscut GaN substrates. It is found that PL originates from localized states; nevertheless, its degree of linear polarization (DLP) is high with little spatial variation. This allows an unambiguous assignment of the localized states to InxGa1−xN composition-related band potential fluctuations. Spatial PL variations, occurring due to morphology features of the on-axis samples, play a secondary role compared to the variations of the alloy composition. The large PL peak wavelength difference for polarizations parallel and perpendicular to the c axis, the weak correlation between the peak PL wavelength and the DLP, and the temperature dependence of the DLP suggest that effective potential variations and the hole mass in the second valence-band level are considerably smaller than that for the first level. DLP maps for the long wavelength PL tails have revealed well-defined regions with a small DLP, which have been attributed to a partial strain relaxation around dislocations.
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