Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics
Femtosecond nonlinear spectroscopy investigation of the yellow band of GaN
Lap Van Dao, Martin Lowe, Peter Hannaford
Abstract
The nonlinear properties of an undoped GaN epitaxial layer in the spectral region of the yellow band have been investigated using two- and three-pulse two-colour photon echo measurements. The optical nonlinearity induced by three sequential femtosecond pulses is studied on a short timescale (<500 fs) where free induction decay and photon echoes are the main contributions to the observed signal and on a long timescale (up to 20 ps) in the case of a population grating. Variation of the wavelength of the femtosecond pulses and the use of spectrally resolved measurements allows us to study the origin of the yellow band and the phase and energy relaxation properties of this band. The results suggest that the emission of light in the yellow band arises from recombination between shallow donors and deep acceptors and that the trapping time of carriers into defect levels is very short (<1 ps).