Growth and optical properties of GaN/AlN quantum wells

TL;DR

This paper reports the growth of GaN/AlN quantum wells using plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy, analyzing their optical properties and internal electric fields, with potential applications in optoelectronic devices.

Contribution

It introduces a method for growing GaN/AlN quantum wells and characterizes their photoluminescence and internal electric fields, highlighting the surfactant effect of Ga.

Findings

Photoluminescence emission ranges from 4.2 to 2.3 eV for well widths of 0.7 to 2.6 nm

Internal electric field strength of approximately 9.2 MV/cm deduced from emission energy dependence

Successful demonstration of GaN/AlN quantum well growth with tunable optical properties

Abstract

We demonstrate the growth of GaN/AlN quantum well structures by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy by taking advantage of the surfactant effect of Ga. The GaN/AlN quantum wells show photoluminescence emission with photon energies in the range between 4.2 and 2.3 eV for well widths between 0.7 and 2.6 nm, respectively. An internal electric field strength of $9.2\pm 1.0$ MV/cm is deduced from the dependence of the emission energy on the well width.