Scanning Near-field Photoluminescence Spectroscopy Research Articles

Multimode scanning near-field photoluminescence spectroscopy and its application for studies of InGaN epitaxial layers and quantum wells

The paper reviews our recent achievements in developing a multimode scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) technique. The multimode SNOM apparatus allows us to simultaneously measure spatial variations of photoluminescence spectra in the illumination and illumination-collection modes, their transients and sample surface morphology. The potential of this technique has been demonstrated on a polar InGaN epitaxial layer and nonpolar InGaN/GaN quantum wells. SNOM measurements have allowed revealing a number of phenomena, such as the band potential fluctuations and their correlation to the surface morphology, spatial nonuniformity of the radiative and nonradiative lifetimes, as well as the extended band nature of localized states. The combination of different modes enabled measurements of the ambipolar carrier diffusion and its anisotropy.

Influence of well width fluctuations on recombination properties in semipolar InGaN quantum wells studied by time- and spatially-resolved near-field photoluminescence

Scanning near-field photoluminescence spectroscopy has been applied to distinguish the relevance of quantum well (QW) alloy composition and well width fluctuations on emission linewidth and recombination times in semipolar (202¯1) plane InGaN QWs. It has been found that well width fluctuations, compared to variations of InGaN alloy composition, play a negligible role in defining the photoluminescence linewidth. However, the well width strongly affects the recombination times. Prolonged radiative and nonradiative carrier lifetimes in wide QWs have been attributed to electron and hole separation by in-plane electric fields caused by nonplanarity of QW interfaces.

High spectral uniformity of AlGaN with a high Al content evidenced by scanning near-field photoluminescence spectroscopy

Scanning near-field photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy was applied to study spatial variations of emission spectra of AlxGa1−xN epilayers with 0.6≤x≤0.7. PL spectra were found to be spatially uniform with peak wavelength standard deviations of only ∼2 meV and ratios between peak intensity standard deviations and average peak intensity values of 0.06. The observed absence of correlation between the PL peak wavelength and intensity shows that spatial distribution of nonradiative recombination centers is not related to band potential fluctuations. Our results demonstrate that the homogeneous broadening and the random cation distribution primarily determine PL linewidths for layers grown under optimized conditions.

Localization potentials in AlGaN epitaxial films studied by scanning near-field optical spectroscopy

Scanning near-field photoluminescence spectroscopy has been applied to evaluate bandgap fluctuations in epitaxial AlGaN films with the AlN molar fraction varying from 0.30 to 0.50. A dual localization pattern has been observed. The potential of the small-scale (<100 nm) localization, evaluated from the width of the photoluminescence spectra, is between 0 and 51 meV and increases with increased Al content. These potential variations have been assigned to small-scale compositional fluctuations occurring due to stress variations, dislocations, and formation of Al-rich grains during growth. Larger area potential variations of 25–40 meV, most clearly observed in the lower Al-content samples, have been attributed to Ga-rich regions close to grain boundaries or atomic layer steps. The density, size, and bandgap energy of these domains were found to be composition dependent. The lower bandgap domains were found to be strongly correlated with the regions with efficient nonradiative recombination.