Influence of excitation frequency on Raman modes of In1-xGaxN thin films

TL;DR

This study investigates how excitation frequency affects Raman modes in In1-xGaxN thin films, revealing significant intensity enhancements and mode variations depending on laser wavelength and Ga content.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of excitation wavelength on Raman scattering intensities and mode energies in In1-xGaxN, highlighting nonlinear behavior of LO modes with Ga composition.

Findings

Red laser enhances A1(LO) mode intensity significantly.

A ~540 cm-1 mode appears only with red laser excitation.

LO modes vary nonlinearly with Ga content.

Abstract

Low energy optical modes of MBE-grown In1-xGaxN thin films with different values of x are investigated using Raman spectroscopy. We also studied the influence of Raman excitation frequency using red and green lasers on scattering intensity of various Raman modes. For those In1-xGaxN alloys whose bandgap energy is close to the red laser, a huge enhancement in the intensities of A1(LO) mode and its 2A1(LO) replica is observed when excited with red laser as compared to the green laser excitation. We found that the energies of longitudinal optical modes (A1 (LO) and 2A1 (LO)) vary nonlinearly unlike the E2 mode with increasing Ga atomic fraction. A Raman mode ~ 540 cm-1 was observed in all In1-xGaxN films with low energy red laser excitation but was absent with green laser excitation. We attribute this mode to A1(TO) mode of the underneath GaN buffer layer.