Effect of annealing on photoluminescence properties of neon implanted GaN

Abstract

The effect of thermal annealing on the luminescence properties of neon implanted GaN thin films was studied. Low temperature photoluminescence (PL) measurements were carried out on the samples implanted with different doses ranging from 1014 to 9 × 1015 cm−2 and annealed isochronally at 800 and 900 °C. We observed a new peak appearing at 3.44 eV in the low temperative PL spectra of all the implanted samples after annealing at 900 °C. This peak has not been observed in the PL spectra of implanted samples annealed at 800 °C except for the samples implanted with the highest dose. The intensity of the yellow luminescence (YL) band noticed in the PL spectra measured after annealing was observed to decrease with the increase in dose until it was completely suppressed at a dose of 5 × 1015 cm−2. The appearance of a new peak at 3.44 eV and dose dependent suppression of the YL band are attributed to the dissociation of VGaON complexes caused by high energy ion implantation.