Proton irradiation effects on HVPE GaN

GaNs grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy(HVPE) were irradiated by protons with different fluences.The changes of surface topography of as-grown and irradiated samples were characterized by atomic force microscopy(AFM).The crystal quality and optical properties of GaN films were examined by the variations of the micro-Raman and photoluminescence(PL) spectra with proton fluence.It was observed that the surface became a little more rough after irradiation.The Raman spectra indicated that the strain of materials and carrier concentration were not affected by the proton injection.The full-width at half-maximum(FWHM) of E 2 high phonon mode narrowed,which was consistent with the FWHM of PL near-band-edge emission(BE).The spectra of yellow luminescence and blue luminescence normalized to the intensity of BE demonstrated a little increase of Ga vacancy and a large decrease of O N,which may be the main reason for the change of optical properties.