The near band edge photoluminescence (PL) of cubic GaN epilayers grown by radio frequency (rf) plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on (100) GaAs is measured. Since the PL is excited with an unfocused laser beam it resembles the layer properties rather than the properties of micron-size inclusions or micro crystals. The low temperature PL spectra show well separated lines at 3.26 and 3.15 eV which are due to excitonic and donor-acceptor pair transitions (donor binding energy 25 meV, acceptor binding energy 130 meV). No emission above the band gap of the cubic phase is detected. PL results are confirmed by x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy which reveal only negligible contributions from hexagonal inclusions and micron size single crystals. The room temperature PL consists of an emission band at about 3.21 eV with a full width at half maximum of 117 meV.

We report on x-ray diffraction and micro-Raman scattering studies on zinc blende InN epitaxial films. The samples were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs(001) substrates using a InAs layer as a buffer. The transverse-optical (TO) and longitudinal-optical phonon frequencies at Γ of c-InN are determined and compared to the corresponding values for c-GaN. Ab initio self-consistent calculations are carried out for the c-InN and c-GaN lattice parameters and TO phonon frequencies. A good agreement between theory and experiment is found.

We report on the mechanisms of optical gain in cubic GaN. Intensity-dependent gain spectra allow a distinction of the processes involved in providing optical amplification. For moderate excitation levels, the biexciton decay is responsible for a gain structure at 3.265 eV. With increasing excitation densities, gain is observed on the high energy side of the cubic band gap due to band filling processes. For the highest pump intensities, the electron-hole plasma is the dominant gain process. Gain values up to 210 cm−1 were obtained, indicating the high potential of cubic GaN for device applications. The observed gain mechanisms are similar to those of hexagonal GaN.

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Pressure and temperature effects on optical transitions in cubic GaN grown on a GaAs substrate have been studied by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy at hydrostatic pressures up to 9 GPa (10 K) and as a function of temperature (10–300 K) at ambient pressure. The dominant emissions at 10 K and ambient pressure are assigned to the bound-exciton transition (zero-phonon line), the donor-acceptor-pair (DAP) emission, and, tentatively, to the first three LO-phonon replicas of the bound exciton. These PL features shift to higher energy with increasing pressure. The pressure coefficients indicate that the observed recombination processes involve states which are closely related to the band edges. Temperature-induced evolutions from bound to free-exciton (FE) transition and DAP emission to free-to-bound transition are resolved. The binding energies of the FE and donor and acceptor levels in cubic GaN have been determined from the temperature and power-density dependence of the PL emission energies.