Photoluminescence from GaAs(1-x)N(x) dilute nitride achieved by nitrogen-implantation and flash lamp annealing

Nitrogen atoms are isoelectronic substituents for arsenic in GaAs. A small amount of nitrogen doping can lead to a pronounced bandgap reduction. Therefore nitrogen-doping can be applied as a powerful technique to modify GaAs based materials for long wavelength optoelectronic devices. In this contribution we present the fabrication of dilute nitride material GaAs1-xNx by nitrogen-implantation and flash lamp annealing (FLA). N was implanted in to the commercial GaAs wafer to form a 0.2 ?m thick layer with atomic concentration of about 0.76 % and 0.38 %. The as-implanted GaAs layer becomes amorphous due to the bombardment of nitrogen ions with high kinetic energy. The GaAs1-xNx layer with compressive strain is epitaxially regrown on GaAs during FLA treatment as confirmed by X-ray diffraction and micro-Raman spectroscopy. In the meantime the bandgap shrinkage is proven by photoluminescence spectroscopy. Based on the redshift of the GaAs1-xNx near band-edge emission, up to 60 % of the implanted N atoms are successfully incorporated into the lattice after FLA. According to our investigation, ion-implantation followed by ultrashort flash lamp treatment, which is quite efficient and low-cost, exhibits a promising prospect on bandgap engineering of GaAs based semiconductors.