Optical properties of Eu-implanted GaN and related-alloy semiconductors

We investigated the optical properties of Eu-implanted GaN and related-alloy semiconductors by photoluminescence (PL) and time resolved PL measurements at room temperature (RT). After thermal annealing, the red emission was observed in each sample due to the intra-4f transitions in Eu³⁺ ions. The PL intensity increases with Al incorporation into GaN while it decreases with In incorporation into GaN, indicating that the emission efficiency depends on the host materials while the emission wavelength is independent of the host materials. Since the decay times of Eu emission of the samples are found to be similar by time resolved PL measurements, the origin of the Eu emission of each sample is supposed to be same. Therefore, the difference in the PL intensity is attributed to the difference in the energy transfer efficiency because of the ion implantation damage and/or bandgap energy of the host materials.