Atomic structure of luminescent centers in high-efficiency Ce-doped w-AlN single crystal

Ryo Ishikawa, Andrew R. Lupini, Fumiyasu Oba, Scott D. Findlay, Naoya Shibata, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe, Hiroyuki Hayashi, Toshifumi Sakai, Isao Tanaka, Yuichi Ikuhara, Stephen J. Pennycook

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    42 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Rare-earth doped wurtzite-type aluminum nitride (w-AlN) has great potential for high-efficiency electroluminescent applications over a wide wavelength range. However, because of their large atomic size, it has been difficult to stably dope individual rare-earth atoms into the w-AlN host lattice. Here we use a reactive flux method under high pressure and high temperature to obtain cerium (Ce) doped w-AlN single crystals with pink-colored luminescence. In order to elucidate the atomic structure of the luminescent centers, we directly observe individual Ce dopants in w-AlN using annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy. We find that Ce is incorporated as single, isolated atoms inside the w-AlN lattice occupying Al substitutional sites. This new synthesis method represents a new alternative strategy for doping size-mismatched functional atoms into wide band-gap materials.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number3778
    JournalScientific Reports
    Volume4
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Jan 21 2014

    Funding

    This research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas, ‘‘Nano Informatics’’ (Grant Nos. 25106003, 25106005, and 25106006) from JSPS, and ‘‘Funding Program for World-Leading Innovation R&D on Science and Technology (FIRST Program).’’ A part of this research was conducted in ‘‘Research Hub for Advanced Nano Characterization, The University of Tokyo,’’ supported under ‘‘Nanotechnology Platform’’ (Project No. 12024046) by MEXT, Japan. R.I. acknowledges support from JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research Abroad. A.R.L. and S.J.P. acknowledge support by the U.S. Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. F.O. acknowledges support from MEXT Elements Strategy Initiative to Form Core Research Center. S.D.F acknowledges support under the Discovery Projects funding scheme of the Australian Research Council (Projects No DP110101570). N.S. acknowledges support from JSPS KAKENHI (Grant No. 23686093). The XANES measurements were carried out under the approval of the Photon Factory Program Advisory Committee (Proposal No. 2007G194). Computing resources of ACCMS at Kyoto University were used for the first-principles calculations.

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