Plan-view transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and cathodoluminescence (CL) images were taken for the same sample at exactly the same location in n-type GaN grown on sapphire substrate by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). There was a clear one to one correspondence between the dark spots observed in CL images and the dislocations in TEM foils, indicating that the dislocations are non-radiative recombination centers. The hole diffusion length in n-type GaN was estimated to be neighboring 50 nm by comparing the diameters of the dark spots in thick samples used for CL and samples that were thinned for TEM observation. The efficiency of light emission is high as long as the minority carrier diffusion length is shorter than the dislocation spacing.

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We have observed stimulated emission at room temperature from a photopumped homoepitaxial GaN for the first time. A homoepitaxial layer was grown by atmospheric metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on small hexagonal bulk GaN prepared by the sublimation method. The lasing threshold of the pumping power density is 0.86 MW/cm2 and the stimulated emission is polarized with its electric vector perpendicular to the c-axis.

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The spatial distribution of luminescence in Si-doped AlGaN epitaxial layers that differ in Al content and Si concentration has been studied by cathodoluminescence (CL) mapping in combination with scanning electron microscopy. The density of surface hillocks increased with decreasing Al content and with increasing Si concentration. The mechanisms giving rise to those hillocks are likely different. The hillocks induced surface roughening, and the compositional fluctuation and local donor-acceptor-pair (DAP) emission at hillock edges in AlGaN epitaxial layers were enhanced irrespective of the origin of the hillocks. The intensity of local DAP emission was related to Si concentration, as well as to hillock density. CL observation revealed that DAP emission areas were present inside the samples and were likely related to dislocations concentrated at hillock edges. Possible candidates for acceptors in the observed DAP emission that are closely related in terms of both Si concentration and hillock edges with large deformations are a V III -Si III complex and Si N , which are unfavorable in ordinary III-nitrides. V C 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.