Pressure-Dependent Behavior of Defect-Modulated Band Structure in Boron Arsenide

Xianghai Meng, Akash Singh, Rinkle Juneja, Yanyao Zhang, Fei Tian, Zhifeng Ren, Abhishek K. Singh, Li Shi, Jung Fu Lin, Yaguo Wang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

The recent observation of unusually high thermal conductivity exceeding 1000 W m−1 K−1 in single-crystal boron arsenide (BAs) has led to interest in the potential application of this semiconductor for thermal management. Although both the electron/hole high mobilities have been calculated for BAs, there is a lack of experimental investigation of its electronic properties. Here, a photoluminescence (PL) measurement of single-crystal BAs at different temperatures and pressures is reported. The measurements reveal an indirect bandgap and two donor–acceptor pair (DAP) recombination transitions. Based on first-principles calculations and time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry results, the two DAP transitions are confirmed to originate from Si and C impurities occupying shallow energy levels in the bandgap. High-pressure PL spectra show that the donor level with respect to the conduction band minimum shrinks with increasing pressure, which affects the release of free carriers from defect states. These findings suggest the possibility of strain engineering of the transport properties of BAs for application in electronic devices.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2001942
JournalAdvanced Materials
Volume32
Issue number45
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 12 2020
Externally publishedYes

Funding

X.M. and A.S. contributed equally to this work. The authors are grateful for the support from National Science Foundation (NASCENT, Grant No. EEC‐1160494; CAREER, Grant No. CBET‐1351881, CBET‐1707080, Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials DMR‐1720595); A.K.S., R.J., and A.S. thank the Materials Research Centre and Supercomputer Education and Research Centre of Indian Institute of Science for providing computing facilities. A.K.S., R.J., and A.S. acknowledge the support from Institute of Eminence (IoE) MHRD grant of Indian Institute of Science. F.T., L.S., and Z.F.R. were supported by Office of Naval Research (ONR) MURI grant N00014‐16‐1‐2436. The authors thank Dr. Andrei Dolocan at TMI of University of Texas at Austin for his help on the TOF‐SIMS measurements.

Keywords

  • band structure
  • boron arsenide, high pressure
  • impurities
  • photoluminescence

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