Low Energy Cathodoluminescence Spectroscopy of Semiconductor Interfaces

Low energy cathodoluminescence spectroscopy (CLS) is a powerful new technique for characterizing the electronic structure of buried semiconductor interfaces. This extension of a more conventional electron microscopy technique provides information on localized states, deep level defects, and band structure of new compounds at interfaces below the free solid surface. From the energy dependence of spectral features, one can distinguish interface versus bulk state emission and assess the relative spatial distribution of states below the free surface. Low energy CLS reveals process changes in the electronic structure of semiconductor interfaces due to metallization, laser annealing, and thermal desorption. Spectral features of metal-semiconductor interfaces uncovered by CLS also provide a new perspective on physical mechanisms of Schottky barrier formation

Luminescence Spectroscopy of Semiconductor Surfaces and Interfaces

Low energy cathodoluminescence spectroscopy (CLS) employing incident electron energies in the range of a few kV or less enable measurement of electronic structure near semiconductor surfaces and interfaces. Coupled with photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL), the CLS technique has been extended to characterize electronic structure tens of nanometers below the free surface at metal-semiconductor and semiconductor-semiconductor junctions. CLS has revealed discrete, deep electronic states for clean and metallized semiconductor surfaces as a function of atomic ordering as well as vicinal surfaces as a function of misorientation. A combination of CLS and PL reveals deep level features associated with strain relaxation and dislocations at heterojunction interfaces as well as variations in epilayer growth conditions. Such observations demonstrate the existence of discrete, deep levels in the semiconductor band gap and their sensitivity to chemical and atomic structure near surfaces and interfaces. Furthermore, the energies and densities of such deep levels provide a consistent picture of Fermi level stabilization and band bending at semiconductor contacts. Finally, our results indicate that deep level CLS/PL measurements are an effective, in-situ probe of surface and interface quality

Raman and Infra-red properties and layer dependence of the phonon dispersions in multi-layered graphene

The symmetry group analysis is applied to classify the phonon modes of $N$-stacked graphene layers (NSGL's) with AB- and AA-stacking, particularly their infra-red and Raman properties. The dispersions of various phonon modes are calculated in a multi-layer vibrational model, which is generalized from the lattice vibrational potentials of graphene to including the inter-layer interactions in NSGL's. The experimentally reported red shift phenomena in the layer number dependence of the intra-layer optical C-C stretching mode frequencies are interpreted. An interesting low frequency inter-layer optical mode is revealed to be Raman or Infra-red active in even or odd NSGL's respectively. Its frequency shift is sensitive to the layer number and saturated at about 10 layers.Comment: enlarged versio

Microcathodoluminescence of Impurity Doping at Gallium Nitride/Sapphire Interfaces

We have used low-temperature cathodoluminescence spectroscopy (CLS) to probe the spatial distribution and energies of electronic defects near GaN/Al2O3 interfaces grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE). Cross sectional secondary electron microscopy CLS shows systematic variations in impurity/defect emissions over a wide range of HVPE GaN/Sapphire electronic properties. These data, along with electrochemical capacitance–voltage profiling and secondary ion mass spectrometry, provide a consistent picture of near-interface doping by O diffusion from Al2O3 into GaN, over a range 100–1000 nm

Origins of luminescence from nitrogen-ion-implanted epitaxial GaAsGaAs

We have examined the origins of luminescence in N-ion-implanted epitaxial GaAsGaAs, using a combination of cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy and low-energy electron-excited nanoscale-luminescence spectroscopy. A comparison of reference, as-implanted, and implanted-plus-annealed samples reveals a variety of emissions. In all samples, we observe the GaAsGaAs fundamental band-gap emission, as well as several emissions related to GaAsGaAs native defects. In the as-implanted and implanted-plus-annealed samples, an emission related to the implantation-induced defects, is also observed. Interestingly, in the implanted-plus-annealed samples, we identify a near-infrared emission associated with GaAsNGaAsN nanocrystallites.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69942/2/APPLAB-85-14-2774-1.pd

Universal dynamical conductance in graphite

We find experimentally that the optical sheet conductance of graphite per graphene layer is very close to $(\pi/2)e^2/h$, which is the theoretically expected value of dynamical conductance of isolated monolayer graphene. Our calculations within the Slonczewski-McClure-Weiss model explain well why the interplane hopping leaves the conductance of graphene sheets in graphite almost unchanged for photon energies between 0.1 and 0.6 eV, even though it significantly affects the band structure on the same energy scale. The f-sum rule analysis shows that the large increase of the Drude spectral weight as a function of temperature is at the expense of the removed low-energy optical spectral weight of transitions between hole and electron bands.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Dominant Effect of Near-Interface Native Point Defects on ZnO Schottky Barriers

The authors used depth-resolved cathodoluminescence spectroscopy and current-voltage measurements to probe metal-ZnO diodes as a function of native defect concentration, oxygen plasma processing, and metallization. The results show that resident native defects in ZnO single crystals and native defects created by the metallization process dominate metal-ZnO Schottky barrier heights and ideality factors. Results for ZnO(0001) faces processed with room temperature remote oxygen plasmas to remove surface adsorbates and reduce subsurface native defects demonstrate the pivotal importance of crystal growth quality and metal-ZnO reactivity in forming near-interface states that control Schottky barrier properties

Self-compensation in semiconductors: The Zn vacancy in Ga-doped ZnO

Self-compensation, the tendency of a crystal to lower its energy by forming point defects to counter the effects of a dopant, is here quantitatively proven. Based on a new theoretical formalism and several different experimental techniques, we demonstrate that the addition of 1.4 × 10 exp 21-cm exp −3 Ga donors in ZnO causes the lattice to form 1.7 × 10 exp 20-cm exp −3 Zn-vacancy acceptors. The calculated VZn formation energy of 0.2 eV is consistent with predictions from density functional theory. Our formalism is of general validity and can be used to investigate self-compensation in any degenerate semiconductor material.Peer reviewe

Stationary states and phase diagram for a model of the Gunn effect under realistic boundary conditions

A general formulation of boundary conditions for semiconductor-metal contacts follows from a phenomenological procedure sketched here. The resulting boundary conditions, which incorporate only physically well-defined parameters, are used to study the classical unipolar drift-diffusion model for the Gunn effect. The analysis of its stationary solutions reveals the presence of bistability and hysteresis for a certain range of contact parameters. Several types of Gunn effect are predicted to occur in the model, when no stable stationary solution exists, depending on the value of the parameters of the injecting contact appearing in the boundary condition. In this way, the critical role played by contacts in the Gunn effect is clearly stablished.Comment: 10 pages, 6 Post-Script figure