Luminescence excitation spectroscopy of NN pairs in GaP:N under uniaxial stress

Abstract We present an investigation of the luminescence excitation spectra of the NN 1 nitrogen pairs in gallium phosphide under uniaxial stress at liquid helium temperature. The main stress effect being to lift the spatial degeneracy of the star of configurations associated with a given NN i pair, we find that the luminescence excitation spectroscopy is a necessary tool in order to understand anambiguously these complex splitting patterns. We deduce the bound hole deformation potentials.