Atmospheric pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxial growth and characterization of high quality GaN on sapphire (0001) substrates are reported. Using AlN buffer layers, GaN thin films with optically flat surfaces free from cracks are successfully grown. The narrowest x-ray rocking curve from the (0006) plane is 2.70' and from the (2024) plane is 1.86'. Photoluminescence spectra show strong near band edge emission. The growth condition dependence of crystalline quality is also studied.

Distinct p-type conduction is realized with Mg-doped GaN by the low-energy electron-beam irradiation (LEEBI) treatment, and the properties of the GaN p-n junction LED are reported for the first time. It was found that the LEEBI treatment drastically lowers the resistivity and remarkably enhances the PL efficiency of MOVPE-grown Mg-doped GaN. The Hall effect measurement of this Mg-doped GaN treated with LEEBI at room temperature showed that the hole concentration is ∼2·1016cm-3, the hole mobility is ∼8 cm2/V·s and the resistivity is ∼35 Ω·cm. The p-n junction LED using Mg-doped GaN treated with LEEBI as the p-type material showed strong near-band-edge emission due to the hole injection from the p-layer to the n-layer at room temperature.

We have studied the influence of piezoelectric fields on luminescence properties of GaInN strained quantum wells. Our calculation suggests that an electric field of 1.08 MV/cm is induced by the piezoelectric effect in strained Ga0.87In0.13N grown on GaN. The photoluminescence peak energy of the Ga0.87In0.13N strained quantum wells showed blue shift with increasing excitation intensity. Moreover, the well-width dependence of its luminescence peak energy was well explained when the piezoelectric fields were taken into account. These results clearly showed that the piezoelectric field induced the quantum-confined Stark effect.

Group-III-nitride semiconductors have shown enormous potential as light sources for full-colour displays, optical storage and solid-state lighting. Remarkably, InGaN blue- and green-light-emitting diodes (LEDs) emit brilliant light although the threading dislocation density generated due to lattice mismatch is six orders of magnitude higher than that in conventional LEDs. Here we explain why In-containing (Al,In,Ga)N bulk films exhibit a defect-insensitive emission probability. From the extremely short positron diffusion lengths (<4 nm) and short radiative lifetimes of excitonic emissions, we conclude that localizing valence states associated with atomic condensates of In-N preferentially capture holes, which have a positive charge similar to positrons. The holes form localized excitons to emit the light, although some of the excitons recombine at non-radiative centres. The enterprising use of atomically inhomogeneous crystals is proposed for future innovation in light emitters even when using defective crystals.

We calculated the crystal orientation dependence of piezoelectric fields in wurtzite strained Ga0.9In0.1N/GaN heterostructures. The highest longitudinal piezoelectric field of 0.7 MV/cm can be generated in (0001)-oriented biaxial-strained Ga0.9In0.1N layer coherently grown on GaN. On the contrary, no longitudinal piezoelectric field is induced in strained layers grown along orientations at an off angle of 39° or 90° from (0001). The high symmetry planes with these angles are, for instance, (1124) and (1012) for 39°, and (1120) and (1010) for 90°. We also calculated the crystal orientation dependence of the transition probability in a 3-nm strained Ga0.9In0.1N/GaN quantum well, which indicated that the transition probability with these non-(0001) orientations becomes 2.3 times larger than that with the (0001) orientation. We conclude that high-performance strained nitride-based optical devices can be obtained by control of the crystal orientation.