Optical activity and defect / dopant evolution in Er-implanted GaN

The annealing behavior of 100 keV Er-implanted GaN at afluence of 1015 cm^-2 is reported in the
present work. The microstructural and optical properties of samples with different thermal treatments were
studied by room temperature photoluminescence (PL), Raman spectra, and Rutherford backscattering. A
possible correlation between microstructural and optical properties was established. APL peak at about 1540
nm was observed for all as-implanted and post-annealed samples. The PL peak intensity reached a maximum at
an annealing temperature of 900℃. The decrease in PL intensity at higher annealing temperature (1050℃)
could be attributed to a reduction of optically active Er sites due to diffusion-out of Er with increasing annealing
 temperatures as shown by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry