Spectroscopic characterization of radiation-induced defects in gallium nitride

Radiation damage studies of GaN provide insights into the fundamental properties of the material as well as the basic knowledge needed to predict degradation of GaN-based devices in space-based applications or other radiation environments. The main interests are in investigating the properties of radiation-induced defects at the microscopic level and providing data to evaluate the radiation hardness of the material.; Selective damage of the N-sublattice is achieved with 0.42 MeV electron irradiation. Two new luminescence lines at 3.4732 eV and 3.4545 eV are detected by time-resolved photoluminescence after irradiation. The two lines are associated with the ground state bound exciton of a new donor B1 and its two-electron transition. The donor binding energy of B1 is determined as 24.9 +/- 0.4 meV, shallower than the impurity donors ON and Si Ga. Among the possible defects, the nitrogen vacancy (VN) is the best candidate for the new donor B1. In addition, a change under focused 267 nm laser beam is observed at cryogenic temperatures in the excitonic luminescence of the irradiated sample. The donor bound exciton intensity of ON and SiGa, the total band edge luminescence intensity, and the luminescence decay lifetime of free and bound excitons all increase with laser exposure time. In contrast, the relative intensity of the B 1 bound exciton emission decreases. The change is not observed with below bandgap illumination. We propose that the light-induced change reflects the illumination-assisted dissociation of non-radiative defect complexes O N-Ni and SiGa-Ni, and subsequently the migration of Ni and at least partial annihilation of N i at VN. The new donor B1 bound exciton emission and the light-induced change starts to disappear at annealing temperature around 300°C, indicating the annihilation of the irradiation-induced vacancy and interstitial defects. An activation energy of 1.5 eV is obtained, which is proposed to be the sum of the dissociation energy of the ON-N i and SiGa-Ni complexes and the migration barrier of the Ni-.; Irradiation with 25 MeV and 55 MeV protons causes damage in both Ga and N-sublattices. A radiation-induced increase in the yellow luminescence and red-shift of the YL peak are observed in a free-standing HVPE GaN after proton irradiation, indicating the introduction of Ga-vacancies. Time-resolved photoluminescence reveals a significant reduction of the carrier lifetime in addition to the decrease in luminescence intensity. Carrier lifetime degradation constants are in the range of 10-15 to 10-14 cm 2/ns, which is 5 to 25 times better than for GaAs. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...