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Investigating surface effects of GaN nanowires using confocal microscopy at below-band gap excitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2017

Lauren R. Richey-Simonsen ,
Nicholas J. Borys ,
Tevye R. Kuykendall ,
P. James Schuck ,
Shaul Aloni  and
Jordan M. Gerton
Lauren R. Richey-Simonsen
Affiliation:
Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
Nicholas J. Borys
Affiliation:
Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA; and Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
Tevye R. Kuykendall
Affiliation:
Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
P. James Schuck
Affiliation:
Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
Shaul Aloni
Affiliation:
Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
Jordan M. Gerton*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
*
a) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: jgerton@physics.utah.edu
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Abstract

We analyze the microscopic origins of subgap photoexcitations of individual gallium nitride (GaN) triangular cross-section nanowires (NWs), which are highly photoactive over a broadband spectral range. Using confocal hyperspectral photoluminescence (PL) microscopy, mid-gap states on the NWs were excited using subgap illumination, resulting in two distinct PL spectra corresponding to the polar (0001) and the semipolar $\left( {\bar 1101} \right)$ / $\left( {1\bar 101} \right)$ surfaces. Emission spectra are well represented by Gaussian functions with fitted centers of 1.99 ± 0.01 eV and 2.26 ± 0.01 eV, respectively. PL collected from the end facets exhibits interference fringes and a relative blue shift. Furthermore, the PL spectrum shifts strongly to the blue when the excitation intensity is increased. These observations are consistent with a qualitative model in which the PL results from excitation into a broad manifold of surface-associated states which are rapidly populated at a high excitation intensity and can couple to etalon modes via longitudinal photon emission.

Keywords

luminescencenanostructurenitride
Type
Invited Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 32 , Issue 21: Focus Issue: Jan van der Merwe: Epitaxy and the Computer Age , 14 November 2017 , pp. 4076 - 4086
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Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2017 

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Footnotes

Contributing Editor: Johan Brand Malherbe

References

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