Thermal annealing effects on ultra-violet luminescence properties of Gd doped AlN

Abstract

We studied energy transfer from AlN to doped Gd3+ ions as a function of the post-thermal annealing temperature. Gd-doped AlN thin films were deposited on fused-silica substrates using a reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering technique. The film is a c-axis oriented polycrystal. The intra-orbital electron transition in Gd3+ showed an atomically sharp luminescence at 3.9 eV (318 nm). The photoluminescence (PL) excitation spectrum exhibited a resonant peak, indicating efficient energy transfer from the host AlN crystal to Gd3+ ions. The PL intensity increases approximately ten times by thermal annealing. The PL decay lifetime becomes long with annealing, and mid-gap luminescence relating to the crystal defects in AlN was also found to be reduced by annealing. These results suggest that energy dissipation of excited carriers in AlN was suppressed by annealing, and the efficiency of energy transfer into Gd3+ was improved.