Cathodoluminescence study of undoped GaN films: Experiment and calculation

Abstract In this paper, we report the theoretical and experimental results of cathodoluminescence (CL) from GaN layers grown at 800 °C by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) on silicon substrate. The CL spectra recorded at room temperature reveal the near band-edge emission at 3.35–3.42 eV and a broad yellow luminescence at 2.2 eV. The CL depth analysis at constant power excitation shows inhomogeneous CL distribution in depth of these emissions as the electron beam increases from 3 to 25 keV. There appears a blue shift of the CL band-edge peaks with increasing sample depth. This behavior is explained by a change of the fundamental band gap due to residual strain and the local temperat…