Limitations in Time Resolved Photoluminescence of Gallium Nitride Using a Streak Camera

Abstract

Semiconductor performance is often characterized in terms of the rate at which its carrier recombination processes occur. Carrier recombination, including radiative, and Shockley-Read-Hall and Auger (both nonradiative), occurs at ultra-fast times in the picosecond or femtosecond regimes. A device which can measure both spectral data and temporal phenomena at this speed is the streak camera. The capability to do time-resolved spectroscopy of wide band gap semiconductors using a streak camera has been established at AFIT for the first time. TRPL from samples of gallium nitride were measured at temperatures of 5 K over spectral bands of 36.6 and temporal ranges of 45 to 1970 ps, both instrument-limited. TRPL features at 3552 and 3587 were studied giving decay lifetimes of 43.2 1.6 ps and 16.8 3.4 ps, respectively. Shockley-Read-Hall, Radiative and Auger coefficients were found but parameterized in terms of experimental efficiency, n, which was not measured. These values, determined using a least-squares-error fit of the carrier recombination rate equation to collected data, are -9.3*109 4.9*108 s-1, 7.5*1017 n 8.0*1016 n cm3/s, and 1.8*1025 n2 2.9*1024 n2 cm 6/s respectively, for the first peak and -2.5 *1010 5.2*109 s-1, 4.9*1019 n 2.0*1019 n cm3/s and -1.4*1028 n2 8.6*1027 n2 cm6/s for the second peak. Since alignment of the streak camera has not yet been optimized, large but unquantified uncertainty in these results exists. Isolating vibrations and improving streak camera alignment should reduce the uncertainty and permit data collection temporally resolved at hundreds of femtoseconds.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2005
Accession Number
ADA434205

Entities

People

  • Thomas R. Jost

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Argon Lasers
  • Band Gaps
  • Band Structures
  • Charge Carriers
  • Crystal Lattices
  • Electrons
  • Energy Bands
  • Energy Gaps
  • Energy Transfer
  • Fermi Levels
  • Laser Beams
  • Lasers
  • Measurement
  • Quantum Mechanics
  • Semiconductor Devices
  • Semiconductors

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.
  • Semiconductor Device Technology

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics