Study of Ion-Beam-Induced Damage and Luminescence Properties in Terbium-Implanted AlGaN

Abstract

Terbium (Tb) ions were implanted into Al0:35Ga0:65N epitaxial layers at room temperature to investigate ion-beam-induced damage and luminescence properties at various doses of 1 x 1012–2:8 x 1016 Tb/㎠. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry/channeling (RBS/channeling) reveals that ion-beam-induced damage level steeply increases and that the damage cannot be fully suppressed even after rapid thermal annealing at 1100 ℃, when the dose exceeds 5 x 1014 Tb/㎠. However, cathodoluminescence (CL) intensity related to Tb3+ transitions increased initially and saturated above a dose of 1 x 1013 Tb/㎠. Furthermore, transient decay time determined by time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) decreased faster and a fast decay component related to the formation of nonradiative Tb-defect complexes became dominant, as Tb ion dose increases. Therefore, the results suggest that Tb-related luminescence properties are much susceptible to defects and nonradiative defects, namely, Tb-defect complexes, are formed under low-dose conditions even at a very low structural defect density.