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Title: Very slow decay of a defect related emission band at 2.4 eV in AlN: Signatures of the Si related shallow DX state

Journal Article · · Journal of Applied Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4946828· OSTI ID:22594629
; ;  [1]; ; ;  [2]
  1. Institute of Quantum Matter/Semiconductor Physics Group, University of Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 45, 89069 Ulm (Germany)
  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27606 (United States)

We report on a defect related luminescence band at 2.4 eV in aluminum nitride bulk crystals, for which we find strong indications to be related to silicon DX centers. Time resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy using a sub-bandgap excitation reveals two different recombination processes with very long decay times of 13 ms and 153 ms at low temperature. Based on the results of temperature and excitation dependent photoluminescence experiments, the process with the shorter lifetime is assigned to a donor-acceptor pair transition involving the shallow silicon donor state, which can be emptied with a thermal dissociation energy of 65 meV. The slower process with a thermal quenching energy of 15 meV is assigned to the slightly deeper Si DX state known from electron paramagnetic resonance experiments, which is transferred back to the shallow donor state.

OSTI ID:
22594629
Journal Information:
Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 119, Issue 15; Other Information: (c) 2016 Author(s); Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-8979
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English