Room temperature photoluminescence studies of nitrided InP(100) surfaces

Abstract The evolution of thin InN overlayer grown on InP (100) rich In substrate was investigated at room temperature by photoluminescence method versus the duration of nitridation process. The main important parameters were the duration of the process, and the angle of the reactive nitrogen flow. The nitridation was performed by a glow discharge source (GDS). The correlations between the electronic properties, gathered from photoluminescence (PL) measurements, and the chemical composition of InN–InP interfaces, derived from Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) were found. AES revealed that the nitridation process proceeds quickly in time showing self-limiting behavior. It is more effective for grazing nitrogen flux. The interface state density distributions, N SS ( E ), were determined via advanced computer-aided analysis of dependencies of band edge PL efficiency, Y PL , versus excitation light intensity, Φ . The analysis showed that the substrates were well passivated with N SS ( E ) minima on the order of 5·10 11 cm − 2 eV − 1 . The nitrogen flux angle during the nitridation was found to have an influence on Y PL ( Φ ) spectra. In all analyzed cases the grazing nitrogen flux generated the interface with slightly improved N SS ( E ) distribution. Finally, the behavior of Y PL versus Φ and N SS ( E ) was precisely examined.