Techniques are provided that pumping of deep traps in GaN electronic devices using photons from an on-chip photon source. In various embodiments, a method for optical pumping of deep traps in GaN HEMTs is provided using an on-chip integrated photon source that is configured to generate photons during operation of the HEMT. In an aspect, the on-chip photon source is a SoH-LED. In various additional embodiments, an integration scheme is provided that integrates the photon source into the drain electrode of a HEMT, thereby converting the conventional HEMT with an ohmic drain to a transistor with hybrid photonic-ohmic drain (POD), a POD transistor or PODFET for short.