Intrinsic and Zn-, Ce-, Tb-, Er-, Sm-, and Eu-Activated photoluminescence of pseudoamorphous GaN and InGaN thin films

Thin films of pseudoamorphous GaN (a-nc-GaN), as well as of its alloys with indium, In_xGa_1?xN (x=0.04, 0.16), were prepared by magnetron sputtering of a metallic target in the plasma of a reactive nitrogen and argon mixture. The a-nc-GaN films were codoped by the Zn acceptor impurity and a set of rare-earth metal (REM) dopants, namely, Ce, Tb, Er, Sm, and Eu. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra excited by a nitrogen laser with wavelength λ=337 nm at room temperature and 77 K were measured for all compositions and a set of impurities. It was shown that the high-energy PL edge of the pseudoamorphous (a-nc) GaN matrix lies at the same energy as that of the crystalline (epitaxial) c-GaN. As in c-GaN, the Zn acceptor impurity stimulates blue luminescence; however, the PL spectrum is substantially more diffuse, with practically no temperature quenching of the PL present. Indium doping in an amount of 16 at. % results in strong PL with a diffuse peak at 2.1–2.2 eV; the PL of the alloy exhibits temperature quenching as high as a factor of three to four in the interval 77–300 K. The decay time of the PL response increases up to 50 µs. RE impurities enter the amorphous GaN host as trivalent ions and produce narrow-band (except Ce) high-intensity spectra, thus indicating both a high solubility of RE impurities in a-nc-GaN and the generation of an effective crystal field (by the GaN anion sublattice) whose local symmetry makes the intracenter f-f transitions partly allowed.