<title>Photoluminescence study of wurtzite Si-doped GaN thin films</title>

Abstract

The photoluminescence (PL) temperature dependence of wurtzite n-type GaN thin films grown on (0001) sapphire substrates by Magnetron sputter epitaxy is reported. Samples were non-intentionally doped, lightly and highly Si-doped. The PL of non-intentionally doped samples consist of the near band edge emission and a broad yellow band (YB) near 2.2 eV. This yellow emission is equally present in spectra of all Si-doped samples. The bound exciton (D<SUP>0</SUP>-X) at 3.488 eV and (A<SUP>0</SUP>-X) at 3.456 eV are present only in the lightly Si-doped samples. The evolution of the energy position of the (D<SUP>0</SUP>-X) is the same as the band gap temperature variation, but the (A<SUP>0</SUP>-X) transition is anormally independent of the temperature in the range studied here. In both Si-doped GaN samples a peak at 3.318 eV and transitions between 3.36 and 3.39 eV are observed. The temperature dependence of the latter shows a fine structure composed of four peaks at 3.364 eV, 3.368 eV, 3.375 eV and 3.383 eV. They are tentatively attributed to the superposition of two donor-acceptor and band-acceptor transitions. This interpretation implies the presence of two donors (D<SUB>1</SUB>,D<SUB>2</SUB>) and two acceptors (A<SUB>1</SUB>,A<SUB>2</SUB>). From the energy position of the band-acceptor and the energy gap of GaN at 20 K, an acceptor ionization energy of 120 and 135 meV respectively is obtained. Assuming 10 meV for a Coulomb interaction energy of the ionized donor-acceptor pairs, a donor ionization energy of 14 and 18 meV respectively is obtained from the energy difference between the donor-acceptor and the band-acceptor positions. An activation energy of 10.8 meV is deduced from the temperature dependence of the YB. The shallow donor (about 10 meV) contributes to the mechanism of the YB.