Pierre Valvin

Hexagonal boron nitride is an indirect bandgap semiconductor

Scientists resolve the long-debated issue of the nature and value of the bandgap in hexagonal boron nitride by providing evidence for an indirect bandgap at 5.955 eV and an exciton binding energy of about 130 meV by means of optical spectroscopy.

Micro Epitaxial lateral overgrowth of GaN/sapphire by Metal Organic Vapour Phase Epitaxy.

GaN/sapphire layers have been grown by Metal Organic Vapour Phase Epitaxy (MOVPE). An amorphous silicon nitride layer is deposited using a SiH 4 /NH 3 mixture prior to the growth of the low temperature GaN buffer layer. Such a process induces a 3D nucleation at the early beginning of the growth, resulting in a kind of maskless ELO process with random opening sizes. This produces a significant decrease of the threading dislocation (TD) density compared to the best GaN/sapphire templates. Ultra Low Dislocation density (ULD) GaN layers were obtained with TD density as low as 7×10 7 cm −2 as measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM), cathodoluminescence and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Time-resolved photoluminescence experiments show that the lifetime of the A free exciton is principally limited by capture onto residual donors, similar to the situation for nearly dislocation-free homoepitaxial layers.

Time-resolved spectroscopy on GaN nanocolumns grown by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy on Si substrates

A detailed study of excitons in unstrained GaN nanocolumns grown by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy on silicon substrates is presented. The time-integrated and time-resolved photoluminescence spectra do not depend significantly on the (111) or (001) Si surface used. However, an unusually high relative intensity of the two-electron satellite peak of the dominant donor-bound exciton line is systematically observed. We correlate this observation with the nanocolumn morphology determined by scanning electron microscopy, and therefore propose an interpretation based on the alteration of wave functions of excitonic complexes and of donor states by the proximity of the semiconductor surface. This explanation is supported by a model that qualitatively accounts for both relative intensities and time decays of the photoluminescence lines.

Efficient radiative recombination and potential profile fluctuations in low-dislocation InGaN∕GaN multiple quantum wells on bulk GaN substrates

We investigated the relation between structural properties and carrier recombination processes in InGaN∕GaN multiple quantum well (MQW) structures with quantum well widths of 3 and 9nm, grown by metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition on bulk GaN crystals. Quantum barriers of the samples are heavily n-type doped in order to effectively screen the large polarization-induced electric fields which commonly occur in hexagonal InGaN∕GaN quantum structures. High thermal stability in these structures, reflected by strong photoluminescence (PL) even above 400K, is attributed to a combination of low-dislocation densities and potential profile fluctuations in the InGaN∕GaN quantum wells. The role of potential profile fluctuations is further investigated by time-resolved photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence (CL) mapping. Comparison of both samples shows that the sample with 3‐nm-wide QWs exhibits (i) a larger width of the PL peak in the temperature range of 8–420K, (ii) a higher amplitude of potential profile f...

Laser emission with excitonic gain in a ZnO planar microcavity

The lasing operation of a ZnO planar microcavity under optical pumping is demonstrated from T=80 to 300 K. At the laser threshold, the cavity switches from the strong coupling to the weak coupling regime. A gain-related transition, which appears while still observing polariton branches and, thus, with stable excitons, is observed below 240 K. This shows that exciton scattering processes, typical of II-VI semiconductors, are involved in the gain process.

Deep-UV nitride-on-silicon microdisk lasers

Deep ultra-violet semiconductor lasers have numerous applications for optical storage and biochemistry. Many strategies based on nitride heterostructures and adapted substrates have been investigated to develop efficient active layers in this spectral range, starting with AlGaN quantum wells on AlN substrates and more recently sapphire and SiC substrates. Here we report an efficient and simple solution relying on binary GaN/AlN quantum wells grown on a thin AlN buffer layer on a silicon substrate. This active region is embedded in microdisk photonic resonators of high quality factors and allows the demonstration of a deep ultra-violet microlaser operating at 275 nm at room temperature under optical pumping, with a spontaneous emission coupling factor β = (4 ± 2) 10−4. The ability of the active layer to be released from the silicon substrate and to be grown on silicon-on-insulator substrates opens the way to future developments of nitride nanophotonic platforms on silicon.

Internal quantum efficiency in yellow-amber light emitting AlGaN-InGaN-GaN heterostructures

We determine the internal quantum efficiency of strain-balanced AlGaN-InGaN-GaN hetero-structures designed for yellow-amber light emission, by using a recent model based on the kinetics of the photoluminescence decay initiated by Iwata et al. [J. Appl. Phys. 117, 075701 (2015)]. Our results indicate that low temperature internal quantum efficiencies sit in the 50% range and we measure that adding an AlGaN layer increases the internal quantum efficiency from 50% up to 57% with respect to the GaN-InGaN case. More dramatic, it almost doubles from 2.5% up to 4.3% at room temperature.

Phonon-Photon Mapping in a Color Center in Hexagonal Boron Nitride

We report on the ultraviolet optical response of a color center in hexagonal boron nitride. We demonstrate a mapping between the vibronic spectrum of the color center and the phonon dispersion in hexagonal boron nitride, with a striking suppression of the phonon assisted emission signal at the energy of the phonon gap. By means of nonperturbative calculations of the electron-phonon interaction in a strongly anisotropic phonon dispersion, we reach a quantitative interpretation of the acoustic phonon sidebands from cryogenic temperatures up to room temperature. Our analysis provides an original method for estimating the spatial extension of the electronic wave function in a point defect.

Room-Temperature Transport of Indirect Excitons in (Al,Ga)N/GaN Quantum Wells

We report on the exciton propagation in polar (Al,Ga)N/GaN quantum wells over several micrometers and up to room temperature. The key ingredient to achieve this result is the crystalline quality of GaN quantum wells (QWs) grown on GaN template substrate. By comparing microphotoluminescence images of two identical QWs grown on sapphire and on GaN, we reveal the twofold role played by GaN substrate in the transport of excitons. First, the lower threading dislocation densities in such structures yield higher exciton radiative efficiency, thus limiting nonradiative losses of propagating excitons. Second, the absence of the dielectric mismatch between the substrate and the epilayer strongly limits the photon guiding effect in the plane of the structure,making exciton transport easier to distinguish from photon propagation. Our results pave the way towards room-temperature gate-controlled exciton transport in wide-bandgap polar heterostructures.

Auger effect in yellow light emitters based on InGaN–AlGaN–GaN quantum wells

The Auger effect and its impact on the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of yellow light emitters based on silicon-doped InGaN–AlGaN–GaN quantum wells are investigated by power dependence measurement and using an ABC model. Photoluminescence intensity recorded as a function of excitation power density follows a linear dependence up to a threshold P T that depends on the design of the sample. Above this threshold, the variation of the intensity becomes sublinear, which is characteristic of the onset of Auger recombination processes. After extracting the evolution of IQE with pump power from the experimental data, we use a modified ABC modeling that includes the residual n-type doping to estimate the contribution of different recombination channels. We find that the Auger effect dominates in the high-excitation regime. In addition, we find that intercalating an AlGaN-strain-compensating layer reduces not only the coefficient of nonradiative recombination rates but also reduces the onset of Auger recombination.