Preparation and Properties of Gallium Phosphide Doped by Rare-Earth Elements

Abstract

ABSTRACTGaP single crystals have been grown from 5at.% solution of P in Ga with (0.01-0.1)at.% of La, Sm or Gd as dopants. Electric properties, photoconductivity and luminescence of the crystals have been investigated by standard methods.Energy levels of impurities, mobility and concentration of current carriers have been determined in wide temperature region. It was shown that nitrogen (N) and other uncontrolled impurities present in the crystals due to some peculiarities of crystal growth. The intrinsic RE impurity luminescent spectra can be seen only together with spectra of excitons bounded on N traps. The evaluation of quantum eficiency for RE impurity made on the base of luminescence decay measurements gives the value close to 1. The interpretation of GaP:RE luminescence spectra is presented as intrashell transitions activated by bound exciton recombination as well as D-A and D-valency band transitions between some contaminating impurity (donor) and RE element (acceptor).