Nature of room-temperature photoluminescence in ZnO

Abstract

The temperature dependence of the photoluminescence (PL) transitions associated with various excitons and their phonon replicas in high-purity bulk ZnO has been studied at temperatures from 12K to above room temperature (320K). Several strong PL emission lines associated with longitudinal optical (LO) phonon replicas of free and bound excitons are clearly observed. The room-temperature PL spectrum is dominated by the phonon replicas of the free exciton transition with the maximum at the first LO phonon replica. The results explain the discrepancy between the transition energy of free exciton determined by reflection measurement and the peak position obtained by the PL measurement.