Effects of electron-phonon interaction and chemical shift on near-band-edge recombination in GaN

A coherent analysis of the near-band-edge luminescence spectra of undoped and Si-doped GaN layers grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy on a sapphire substrate has been performed with a model including the effect of the charge carrier-longitudinal optical (LO) phonon interaction, based on Frohlich's polaron theory. This model allows one to correlate the relative intensities of the phonon sidebands to the position of the zero-phonon line from which ionization energies are obtained. Moreover, central-cell corrections are taken into account using two different models: the quantum defect model and the Lucovsky model [Solid State Comm. 3, 299 (1965)]. The effect of the electron-LO phonon interaction has been included in these models. Comparison between theory and experiment through the Huang-Rhys factor [Proc. Roy Soc. A204, 406 (1950)] allows a precise determination of the impurity binding energies and effective radii, as well as a reliable characterization of the charge carrier-LO phonon interaction. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.