Identification of yellow luminescence centers in Be-doped GaN through pressure-dependent studies

Effective acceptor doping of wide-band-gap semiconductors is still an outstanding problem. Beryllium has been suggested as a shallow acceptor in GaN, but despite sporadic announcements, Be-induced p-type doping has never been practically realized. Be-doped GaN possesses two luminescence bands; one at 3.38 eV and a second near 2.2 eV at an energy close to that of the parasitic yellow luminescence often found in undoped GaN crystals. We have performed high hydrostatic pressure studies of bulk, Be-doped gallium nitride crystals using the diamond anvil cell technique. We observed a splitting of the yellow luminescence line under hydrostatic pressure into two components, one which is strongly dependent on applied pressure and another whose pressure dependence is more modest. Together with hybrid functional calculations, we attribute the strongly-varying component to the beryllium-oxygen complex. The second component of the yellow luminescence possesses very similar pressure behavior to the yellow luminescence observed in undoped samples grown by the same method, behavior which we find consistent with the C-N acceptor. At higher pressure, we observe the vanishing of yellow luminescence and a rapid increase in luminescence intensity of the UV line. We explain this as the pressure-induced transformation of the Be-O complex from a highly localized state with large lattice relaxation to a delocalized state with limited lattice relaxation.