Comparison of the Optical Properties of Er3+ Doped Gallium Nitride Prepared by Metalorganic Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MOMBE) and Solid Source Molecular Beam Epitaxy (SSMBE)

We report on the luminescence properties of Er doped GaN grown prepared by metalorganic molecular beam epitaxy (MOMBE) and solid-source molecular beam epitaxy (SSMBE) on Si substrates. Both types of samples emitted characteristic 1.54 µm PL resulting from the intra-4f Er3+ transition 4I13/2→4I15/2. Under below-gap excitation the samples exhibited very similar 1.54 µm PL intensities. On the contrary, under above-gap excitation GaN: Er (SSMBE) showed ∼80 times more intense 1.54 µm PL than GaN: Er (MOMBE). In addition, GaN: Er (SSMBE) also emitted intense green luminescence at 537 nm and 558 nm, which was not observed from GaN: Er (MOMBE). The average lifetime of the green PL was determined to be 10.8 µs at 15 K and 5.5 µs at room temperature. A preliminary lifetime analysis suggests that the decrease in lifetime is mainly due to the strong thermalization between the 2H11/2 and 4S3/2 excited states. Nonradiative decay processes are expected to only weakly affect the green luminescence.