Time-Resolved Studies of Gallium Nitride Doped with Gadolinium

B. Witek a, A. Wysmołek a, M. Kamińska a, A. Twardowski a, M. Potemski b, M. Boćkowski c and I. Grzegory c a Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Warsaw, Hoża 69, 00-681 Warsaw, Poland b Grenoble High Magnetic Fields Laboratory, BP 166X, F-38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France c Institute of High Pressure Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

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Received: 7 06 2008;

Time-resolved photoluminescence experiments on high quality bulk GaN doped with Gd are presented. It was found that the decay time of Gd-related transitions observed for 4.2 K around 1.78 eV is of about 3 ms. Such a long decay time strongly supports the identification of this emission band as due to transitions between Gd3+(4f7) levels. The decay time measured for Gd-related transitions observed in the UV spectral range, close to the GaN band-gap, was found to be much faster than 1 μs. This suggests that these emission lines could hardly be correlated with internal transitions within Gd3+(4f7). Possible origin of the Gd-related UV luminescence is discussed.

DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.114.1425 PACS numbers: 78.55.Cr, 75.50.Pp, 71.55.-i, 71.35.Ji