Extremely high quantum efficiency of donor-acceptor-pair emission in N-and-B-doped 6H-SiC

High-efficiency visible light emission in N-and-B-doped 6H-SiC epilayers was observed in photoluminescence measurements at room temperature. The orange-yellow light emission due to the recombination of donor-acceptor pairs (DAPs) has a broad spectrum with a peak wavelength of 576 nm and a full width at half maximum of 110 nm at 250 K. The high B concentration of more than 10(18) cm(-3) improves the emission efficiency of the DAP recombination at a high temperature. Compared with the photoluminescence spectrum of GaN at 10 K, a high quantum efficiency of 95% was estimated for the highly B-doped sample. From time-resolved photoluminescence measurements, a DAP recombination time of 5.0 ms was obtained, which is in good agreement with the calculated value by the rate equation with the assumption of a 95% internal quantum efficiency. This is quite promising as a light-emitting medium by optical pumping, as well as monolithic light sources combined with nitride-based light-emitting diodes grown on the DA-doped SiC epilayer. (C) 2006 American Institute of Physics.