No abstract

GaN epitaxial layers on sapphire substrates were grown by the rotating disk metal organic chemical vapor deposition technique. Excitonic transitions from conduction band to spin-orbit split valence bands were observed. At 12 K we observed donor bound exciton and a very weak acceptor bound exciton. The temperature dependence of luminescence peak positions of free-excitons A and B were fitted to the Varshni’s equation to study the variation of the band gap with temperature. The linewidth of the free exciton (A) was studied as a function of temperature and was explained by theoretical model considering the scattering of excitons with acoustic phonons and longitudinal optical phonons. In the 12 K spectrum we also observed phonon-assisted excitonic transitions. The activation energy of the free exciton (A) was found to be 26 meV, while that of the donor bound exciton was 7 meV. The binding energy of the donor was estimated as 35 meV and that of the acceptor as 250 meV. The band gap of GaN was found to be 3.505 eV at 12 K and 3.437 at room temperature. All the parameters obtained in the present investigation are compared with those reported in the literature.

In n-type GaN films grown on sapphire substrates by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition such as unintentionally GaN and intentionally Si-doped GaN and In-doped GaN, the electron capture behaviors were investigated by deep level transient spectroscopy with various filling pulse durations. Two distinct deep levels E1 and E2 were typically observed in unintentionally doped n-type GaN. After optimized growth of undoped GaN, deep level E1 disappears. With increasing Si doping, the trap concentration of deep level E2 is increased. However, In doping in n-type GaN growth was found to suppress the formation of deep level E2. The electrons captured at the traps E1 and E2 were found to depend logarithmically on the duration time of the filling pulse. From an analysis of a model involving barrier-limited capture rate, it can be concluded that deep level E1 is associated with linear line defects along dislocation cores while deep level E2 is related to point defects.

Carrier localization phenomena in indium-rich InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) grown on sapphire and GaN substrates were investigated. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, ultraviolet near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), and confocal time-resolved PL (TRPL) spectroscopy were employed to verify the correlation between carrier localization and crystal quality. From the spatially resolved PL measurements, we observed that the distribution and shape of luminescent clusters, which were known as an outcome of the carrier localization, are strongly affected by the crystalline quality. Spectroscopic analysis of the NSOM signal shows that carrier localization of MQWs with low crystalline quality is different from that of MQWs with high crystalline quality. This interrelation between carrier localization and crystal quality is well supported by confocal TRPL results.

Magnesium doped GaN epitaxial layers were grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition on sapphire substrate. Energy levels of these acceptors were investigated by systematic photoluminescence measurements in the temperature range of 12–300 K. Magnesium concentration was varied from <1×1019 to higher than 5×1019 cm−3. Photoluminescence measurements were made on the as-grown and annealed samples. We have observed various transitions related to donor to acceptor and their phonon replicas, conduction band to acceptors, and free excitons. Their dependence on temperature, concentration of the magnesium impurity and annealing conditions was discussed. In our study, two important observations were made. First, very deep level luminescence was not observed even in the highly magnesium doped as-grown samples. Second, free exciton transitions including valence band splittings were observed for the first time in the Mg-doped materials, demonstrating the high quality of the samples.