Residual strains have been evaluated in a variety of GaN layers grown on sapphire or 6H-SiC from wafer curvature at 293 K, which avoids needing to know the unstrained lattice parameters or energy gap of GaN in advance. Estimated strains at 1.7 K are correlated with the energy of the A free exciton to determine its strain dependence. We find that strain-free GaN has an A exciton energy of 3.468±0.002 eV at 1.7 K, and 293 K lattice parameters a=3.1912 Å and c=5.1836 Å. These values imply that GaN on SiC is frequently under net biaxial compressive stress due to residual lattice mismatch stress, and that several hundred μm thick GaN layers on sapphire and homoepitaxial layers grown on bulk platelets grown at high pressure are both under about 1×10−3 in-plane compressive strain. These conclusions conflict with most previous assumptions.

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We report several new aspects of the excitonic properties of heteroepitaxial GaN grown on sapphire or 6H-SiC. In particular, we observed the n = 2 free exciton associated with both A and B excitons (which are distinct from the n = 1 C exciton) using reflectance and 1.7 K photoluminescence. We also studied the behavior of the n = 2 A-exciton using magnetoluminescence in fields up to 12 T. The large diamagnetic shift and splitting positively confirm the identification, yielding an exciton binding energy of about 26.4 meV. Several previous identifications of the n = 2 free exciton yielding a smaller exciton binding energy are probably in error, based on our results. We have also detected the two-electron replica of the neutral donor-bound exciton for the first time in GaN and observed its splitting pattern in magnetic fields up to 12 T. This feature is 22 meV below the principal neutral donor-bound exciton peak, independently of strain shifts in the overall spectrum. It yields a precise donor binding energy of 29 meV for the shallow residual donor in material grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition and gas-source molecular beam epitaxy, considerably smaller than that of the residual donor reported earlier in hydride vapor phase epitaxial material (about 35.5 meV).

We have investigated spectroscopically the gain characteristics of InGaN quantum well (QW) diode lasers. While the transparency condition can be reached at a moderate current density, the filling of localized band-edge states is a prerequisite for achieving lasing in this profoundly nonrandom alloy.

Growth of high quality Al0.22Ga0.78As layers on Si substrates by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition

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Single crystal thin films with compositions from the A1N-InN-GaN system were grown via metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on single crystal 6H-SiC substrates. Blue light emitting (LED) and laser diode (LD) structures were fabricated. The conducting buffer layer LEDs employed an AlGaN buffer layer which provides a conduction path between SiC and the active device region. The external quantum efficiency of the LEDs was 3% at 20 mA- 3.6V and peak emission wavelength of 430 nm. Violet and blue LDs were fabricated and consisted of an 8-well InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (MQW) active region in a separate confinement heterostructure (SCH) design. Lasing was obtained both on structures using an insulating buffer layer, and also on structures using a conducting buffer layer. The resulting lasers operated at room temperature using pulsed and continuous wave operation with an emission wavelength of 404-435 rim. The lowest threshold current density obtained for lasing was 11 kA/cm2.

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