Time-resolved study of yellow and blue luminescence in Si- and Mg-doped GaN

Time-resolved photoluminescence has been employed to study the donor-acceptor pair recombination kinetics of the yellow (similar to 2.3 eV) and blue (similar to 2.8 eV) luminescence bands in Si- and Mg-doped GaN layers, respectively. As the Si doping concentration in Si-doped GaN increases, the lifetime tau(1/e) of the yellow luminescence decreases, indicating that a shallow Si donor is the origin of the yellow luminescence. The blue luminescence is most likely due to a shallow Mg acceptor and a deep donor composed of a Mg acceptor-nitrogen vacancy complex, as seen by the independence of tau(1/e) on the Mg concentration measured by secondary ion mass spectroscopy in the range (2.5-6.0)x10(19) cm(-3). As the temperature is increased from 10 to 300 K, the lifetimes for the yellow and blue luminescence remain nearly constant, indicating that the distribution of electrons and holes bound to donors and acceptors does not change much with increasing temperature. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)03407-0].