), the 3.466 eV ABE1 acceptor bound exciton and the associated 3.27 eV donor-acceptor pair (DAP) band are the only strong photoluminescence (PL) signals at 2 K, and are identified as related to the substitutional Mg acceptor with a binding energy of 0.225 6 0.005 eV, and with a moderate phonon coupling strength. Interaction between basal plane stacking faults (BSFs) and Mg acceptors is suggested to give rise to a second deeper Mg acceptor species, with optical signatures ABE2 at 3.455 eV and a corresponding weak and broad DAP peak at about 3.15 eV. The 2.9 eV PL band has been ascribed to many different processes in the literature. It might be correlated with another deep level having a low concentration, only prominent at high Mg doping in material grown by the Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition technique. The origin of the low temperature metastability of the Mg-related luminescence observed by many authors is here reinterpreted and explained as related to a separate non-radiative metastable deep level defect, i.e., not the Mg Ga acceptor. V C 2014 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx

The effect of Mg doping on stacking fault (SF) formation in c-plane GaN grown by metal-organic chemicalvapor deposition has been studied for Mg concentration between 2 × 10 18 cm −3 and 5 × 10 19 cm −3 . Transmission electron microscopy studies demonstrate a direct correlation between the increasing Mg content and the number of small (3-10-nm long) SFs present. The energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDX) line profile of a SF shows that the Mg-impurity atom resides at a distance approximately 5 nm from the SF. Cathodoluminescence (CL) mapping reveals that the Mg-doped regions radiate at energies corresponding to known SF emission peaks. SF-related peaks in CL spectra show metastability, which may be attributed to transfer processes involving Mg acceptors and nearby associated SFs.

Atom probe tomography studies on highly Mg-doped homoepitaxial GaN (0001) layers with concentrations of 5 × 10(19) cm(-3) and 1 × 10(20) cm(-3) were performed. Mg cluster formation was observed only in the higher doped sample whereas in the lower doped sample the Mg distribution was homogeneous. CL measurements have shown that the emission normally attributed to stacking faults was only present in the lower doped layers (with Mg concentration of ∼5 × 10(19) cm(-3) or less), but absent in the higher doped layer, where Mg clusters were detected. Mg clusters are proposed to produce a screening effect, thereby destroying the exciton binding on the SFs and thus rendering them optically inactive.

Freestanding n-type intentionally doped GaN layers grown by halide vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) were studied by transient photoluminescence (PL). Concentrations of silicon and oxygen were varied in the range between 10 17 and 10 18 cm −3 , as confirmed by secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS). We show that a reduction of the background silicon concentration by one order of magnitude compared to the background level in undoped samples can be achieved by incorporation of oxygen during the growth. A strong band gap narrowing (BGN) of ∼6 meV was observed with increasing doping in the studied samples. The low temperature PL recombination time for donor-bound excitons (DBEs) was found to depend significantly on donor concentration. A model assuming generation of DBEs by capturing of free excitons by neutral donors explains the experimental results at low temperature. From fitting the experimental DBE lifetime to the model, the donor concentration dependence for O and Si donors could be reproduced. An effective exciton capture cross-section was found to be ∼9.4 × 10 −15 and 1.2 × 10 −14 cm 2 for silicon and oxygen donors, respectively.

We have investigated low temperature growth of GaN nanostructures using halide vapour phase epitaxy on c-oriented Al 2 O 3 and Au-coated Al 2 O 3 substrates. Depending on the III/V ratio and the growth temperature, the shape and density of the structures could be controlled. By increasing the GaCl partial pressure, the structure changed from dot like to nanotubes. The nanotubes, which could be open or closed, were about 1 µm long with a diameter of typically 200 nm. In addition, it was observed that the nanostructures were spontaneously nucleated at droplets of Ga or, when using Au coated Al 2 O 3 , on droplets of Au/Ga alloy. By varying the growth temperature, the inner diameter of the nanotubes could be controlled. The experimental results suggest that this approach with prepatterned Au-coated Al 2 O 3 substrates has the potential for fabrication of well-organized nanotubes with a high density.