Identification of Ag and Cd photoluminescence in $^{111}$Ag-doped GaN

In order to unambiguously identify the chemical nature of Cd and Ag related optical transitions in GaN, epitaxial GaN layers were implanted with the radioactive isotope $^{111}$Ag which decays into stable $^{111}$Cd. This chemical transmutation was monitored by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Being an element specific property, the half-life of this decay was used to establish the chemical assignment of the optical transitions to a specific defect. We found that the Ag related transitions consist of a series of four single lines (1.610, 1.600, 1.594, and 1.573 eV), each accompanied by two phonon replicas separated by 63 meV. Cd produces two PL bands centered at 2.7 and 3.2 eV. Additional Cd-related single transitions at 3.341, 3.328, and 3.249 eV have been observed. Exponential fits to the PL intensities yield half-lives of $t_{1/2}^{Ag}$= (7.61$\pm$0.27) d and $t_{1/2}^{Cd}$=(7.60$\pm$0.27) d, respectively, in good agreement with the half-life of $^{111}$Ag of 7.45 d. (13 refs).