Thermal annealing effects on ultra-violet luminescence properties of Gd doped AlN

We studied energy transfer from AlN to doped Gd3+ ions as a function of the post-thermal annealing temperature. Gd-doped AlN thin films were deposited on fused-silica substrates using a reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering technique. The film is a c-axis oriented polycrystal. The intra-orbi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied physics 2015-04, Vol.117 (16), p.163105
Main Authors: Kita, Takashi, Ishizu, Yuta, Tsuji, Kazuma, Harada, Yukihiro, Chigi, Yoshitaka, Nishimoto, Tetsuro, Tanaka, Hiroyuki, Kobayashi, Mikihiro, Ishihara, Tsuguo, Izumi, Hirokazu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ABSORPTION SPECTRA
ALUMINIUM NITRIDES
Aluminum nitride
ANNEALING
Applied physics
APPROXIMATIONS
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
CRYSTAL DEFECTS
CRYSTALS
Defect annealing
DOPED MATERIALS
Electron transitions
ELECTRONS
Energy dissipation
ENERGY LOSSES
ENERGY TRANSFER
EXCITATION
Excitation spectra
Gadolinium
GADOLINIUM IONS
LIFETIME
Luminescence
Magnetron sputtering
Optical properties
PHOTOLUMINESCENCE
Polycrystals
Radioactivity
RADIOWAVE RADIATION
SILICA
Silicon dioxide
Substrates
THIN FILMS
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Summary:We studied energy transfer from AlN to doped Gd3+ ions as a function of the post-thermal annealing temperature. Gd-doped AlN thin films were deposited on fused-silica substrates using a reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering technique. The film is a c-axis oriented polycrystal. The intra-orbital electron transition in Gd3+ showed an atomically sharp luminescence at 3.9 eV (318 nm). The photoluminescence (PL) excitation spectrum exhibited a resonant peak, indicating efficient energy transfer from the host AlN crystal to Gd3+ ions. The PL intensity increases approximately ten times by thermal annealing. The PL decay lifetime becomes long with annealing, and mid-gap luminescence relating to the crystal defects in AlN was also found to be reduced by annealing. These results suggest that energy dissipation of excited carriers in AlN was suppressed by annealing, and the efficiency of energy transfer into Gd3+ was improved.
ISSN:0021-8979
1089-7550
DOI:10.1063/1.4919419