Highly Efficient Excitonic Recombination of Non-polar (112¯0) GaN Nanocrystals for Visible Light Emitter by Hydride Vapour Phase Epitaxy

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 2076
• Main Authors: Lee, Moonsang, Lee, Dongyun, Baik, Hionsuck, Kim, Heejin, Jeong, Yesul, Yang, Mino, Lee, Hyun Uk, Hahm, Myung Gwan, Kim, Jaekyun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 07-02-2020; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/301; 639/301/1005; 639/301/1019; 639/301/357; 639/301/930; Crystals; Epitaxy; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Nanocrystals; Oxygen; Photons; Recombination; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Spectroscopy
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-58887-7

While non-polar nanostructured-GaN crystals are considered as a prospective material for the realization of futuristic opto-electronic application, the formation of non-polar GaN nanocrystals (NCs) with highly efficient visible emission characteristics remain unquestionable up to now. Here, we report the oxygen-incorporated a-plane GaN NCs with highly visible illumination excitonic recombination characteristics. Epitaxially aligned a-plane NCs with average diameter of 100 nm were formed on r-plane sapphire substrates by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE), accompanied by the oxygen supply during the growth. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy measurements proved that the NCs exhibited Ga-O bonding in the materials, suggesting the formation of oxidized states in the bandgap. It was found that the NCs emitted the visible luminescence wavelength of 400‒500 nm and 680‒720 nm, which is attributed to the transition from oxygen-induced localized states. Furthermore, time-resolved photoluminescence studies revealed the significant suppression of the quantum confined Stark effect and highly efficient excitonic recombination within GaN NCs. Therefore, we believe that the HVPE non-polar GaN NCs can guide the simple and efficient way toward the nitride-based next-generation nano-photonic devices.