Materials 2013, 6(3), 1050-1060; doi:10.3390/ma6031050
Article

Photoluminescence Study of Gallium Nitride Thin Films Obtained by Infrared Close Space Vapor Transport

Guillermo Santana 1,2,* email, Osvaldo de Melo 2,3 email, Jorge Aguilar-Hernández 2 email, Rogelio Mendoza-Pérez 4 email, B. Marel Monroy 1 email, Adolfo Escamilla-Esquivel 2 email, Máximo López-López 5 email, Francisco de Moure 2 email, Luis A. Hernández 2 email and Gerardo Contreras-Puente 2 email
1 Instituto de Investigaciones en Materiales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coyoacán, México DF, C.P. 04510, Mexico 2 Escuela Superior de Física y Matemáticas del IPN, Edif. 9, Unidad Profesional Adolfo López Mateos, Col. Lindavista, México DF, C.P. 07738, Mexico 3 Facultad de Física, Universidad de La Habana, La Habana, C.P. 10400, Cuba 4 Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, Campus San Lorenzo Tezonco, México DF, C.P. 09790, Mexico 5 Departamento de Física, Centro de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados del IPN, México DF, C.P. 07360, Mexico
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 11 January 2013; in revised form: 22 February 2013 / Accepted: 1 March 2013 / Published: 15 March 2013
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Luminescent Materials 2013)
PDF Full-text Download PDF Full-Text [561 KB, uploaded 15 March 2013 12:13 CET]
Abstract: Photoluminescence (PL) studies in GaN thin films grown by infrared close space vapor transport (CSVT-IR) in vacuum are presented in this work. The growth of GaN thin films was done on a variety of substrates like silicon, sapphire and fused silica. Room temperature PL spectra of all the GaN films show near band-edge emission (NBE) and a broad blue and green luminescence (BL, GL), which can be seen with the naked eye in a bright room. The sample grown by infrared CSVT on the silicon substrate shows several emission peaks from 2.4 to 3.22 eV with a pronounced red shift with respect to the band gap energy. The sample grown on sapphire shows strong and broad ultraviolet emission peaks (UVL) centered at 3.19 eV and it exhibits a red shift of NBE. The PL spectrum of GaN films deposited on fused silica exhibited a unique and strong blue-green emission peak centered at 2.38 eV. The presence of yellow and green luminescence in all samples is related to native defects in the structure such as dislocations in GaN and/or the presence of amorphous phases. We analyze the material quality that can be obtained by CSVT-IR in vacuum, which is a high yield technique with simple equipment set-up, in terms of the PL results obtained in each case.
Keywords: solar cells; infrared-CSVT; GaN; photoluminescence; thin films

Article Statistics

Click here to load and display the download statistics.

Cite This Article

MDPI and ACS Style

Santana, G.; de Melo, O.; Aguilar-Hernández, J.; Mendoza-Pérez, R.; Monroy, B.M.; Escamilla-Esquivel, A.; López-López, M.; de Moure, F.; Hernández, L.A.; Contreras-Puente, G. Photoluminescence Study of Gallium Nitride Thin Films Obtained by Infrared Close Space Vapor Transport. Materials 2013, 6, 1050-1060.

AMA Style

Santana G, de Melo O, Aguilar-Hernández J, Mendoza-Pérez R, Monroy BM, Escamilla-Esquivel A, López-López M, de Moure F, Hernández LA, Contreras-Puente G. Photoluminescence Study of Gallium Nitride Thin Films Obtained by Infrared Close Space Vapor Transport. Materials. 2013; 6(3):1050-1060.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Santana, Guillermo; de Melo, Osvaldo; Aguilar-Hernández, Jorge; Mendoza-Pérez, Rogelio; Monroy, B. M.; Escamilla-Esquivel, Adolfo; López-López, Máximo; de Moure, Francisco; Hernández, Luis A.; Contreras-Puente, Gerardo. 2013. "Photoluminescence Study of Gallium Nitride Thin Films Obtained by Infrared Close Space Vapor Transport." Materials 6, no. 3: 1050-1060.

Materials EISSN 1996-1944 Published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland RSS E-Mail Table of Contents Alert