Oxygen photo-adsorption related quenching of photoluminescence in group-III nitride nanocolumns.

Pierre Lefebvre (1, 2) , Steven Albert (1) , Jelena Ristic (1, 3) , S. Fernandez-Garrido (1, 4) , J. Grandal (1, 5) , M.A. Sanchez-Garcia (1) , E. Calleja (1)

1 ETSI Telecomunicacion - Departamento de Ingeniería Electrónica and ISOM
2 L2C - Laboratoire Charles Coulomb
3 OSRAM Semiconductors GmbH
4 PDI - Paul-Drude-Institut für Festkörperelektronik
5 Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering

GaN and InGaN nanocolumns of various compositions are studied by room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) under different ambient conditions. GaN nanocolumns exhibit a reversible quenching upon exposure to air under constant UV excitation, following a t (power) - 1/2 time dependence and resulting in a total reduction of intensity by 85-90%, as compared to PL measured in vacuum, with no spectral change. This effect is not observed when exposing the samples to pure nitrogen. We attribute this effect to photoabsorption and photodesorption of oxygen that modifies the surface potential bending. InGaN nanocolumns, under the same experimental conditions do not show the same quenching features: The high-energy part of the broad PL line is not modified by exposure to air, whereas a lower-energy part, which does quench by 80-90%, can now be distinguished. We discuss the different behaviors in terms of carrier localization and possible composition or strain gradients in the InGaN nanocolumns.

Mots clés: GaN; nanocolumns; nanowires; nanocolonnes; nanofils

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Pierre Lefebvre, Steven Albert, Jelena Ristic, S. Fernandez-Garrido, J. Grandal, et al.. Oxygen photo-adsorption related quenching of photoluminescence in group-III nitride nanocolumns.. Superlattices and Microstructures, 2012, 52, pp.165. ⟨10.1016/j.spmi.2012.05.001⟩. ⟨hal-00704495⟩