Photoluminescence study of Si doping cubic GaN grown on (001) GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

The photoluminescence (PL) properties of Si-doped cubic GaN with different carrier concentrations were investigated at room temperature. The epilayers were grown on GaAs (0 0 1) by radio-frequency molecular beam epitaxy. It w as found that when the carrier concentration is increased fi om 5 x 10(15) to 2 x 10(18) cm(-3), the PL peak shifted towards low energy, from 3.246 to 3.227 eV, and the PL linewidth increased from 77.1 to 121 meV. The PL peak shift is explained by the bandgap narrowing effect due to the high doping concentration. The PL linewidth includes two parts: one is doping concentra tion independent, which is caused by the imperfection of samples and phonon scattering; the other is doping concentration dependent. We assign the sec ond part to the broadening by the microscopic fluctuation of the doping con centration. The experimental measurements are in good agreement with the mo del. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.