Time-resolved photoluminescence and photoreflectance spectroscopy of GaN layers grown on SiN-treated sapphire substrate: Optical properties evolution at different growth stages

Abstract In this paper, we present a systematic study of the optical properties evolution of GaN films during the complete growth process on SiN-treated sapphire substrates by atmospheric pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. The growth process was monitored using in-situ laser reflectometry and was interrupted at different stages to obtain the studied samples. The obtained samples were ex-situ characterized by means of photoluminescence (PL), photoreflectance (PR) and time-resolved PL (TRPL) spectroscopies. The PL emission from the samples of the initial growth stages originates from nano-crystallite and defect states due to the 3D growth mode. However, with increasing layer thickness, the 2D growth mode is established, and the PL spectrum is dominated by free-exciton emission. The electric field extracted by applying the Franz-Keldysh oscillation (FKO) theory on the PR spectra shows a trend to decrease as the GaN layer thickness is increased. For fully coalesced layers, the FKO totally disappears, and the PR spectrum is dominated by free-exciton transitions. TRPL measurements demonstrate the contribution of two processes to the PL decay, i.e., fast and slow components. While the slow decay time reveals the same sensitivity to different types of dislocations (twist and tilt mosaics), the fast decay time is more affected by the twist mosaic than by the tilt one.