Influence of low-energy electron beam irradiation on defects in activated Mg-doped GaN

CL spectroscopy studies at varying temperatures and excitation power densities as well as depth-resolved CL imaging were conducted to investigate the impact of low energy electron beam irradiation (LEEBI) on native defects and residual impurities in metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) grown Mg-doped p-type GaN. Due to the dissociation of (Mg-H)⁰ complexes, LEEBI significantly increases the (e,Mg⁰) emission (3.26 eV) at 300 K and substantially decreases the H-Mg donor-acceptor-pair (DAP) emission (3.27 eV) at 80 K. In-plane and depth-resolved CL imaging indicates that hydrogen dissociation results from electron-hole recombination at H-defect complexes rather than heating by the electron beam. The dissociated hydrogen atoms associate with nitrogen vacancies, forming a deeper donor, i.e. a (H-V_N) complex. The corresponding deeper DAP emission with Mg centered at 3.1 eV is clearly observed between 160 and 220 K. Moreover, a broad yellow luminescence (YL) band centered at 2.2 eV is observed in MOVPE-grown Mg-doped GaN after LEEBI-treatment. It is suggested that a combination of LEEBI-induced Fermi-level downshift due to Mg-acceptor activation and simultaneous dissociation of gallium vacancy-impurity complexes, i.e. (V_Ga-H), is responsible for the observed YL.