Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

September 2012

Abstract

The crystal-field and Zeeman splittings of the energy levels of Nd3+(4f3) 2S+1LJ in hexagonal phase AlN have been investigated. The multiplet manifolds of Nd3+(4f3) analyzed include the ground state, 4I9/2, and excited states 4I11/2, 4I13/2, 4F3/2, 4F5/2, 2H(2)9/2, 4F7/2, 4S3/2, 4G5/2, and 2G7/2. Experimental energy levels were obtained from analyses of the 12 K cathodoluminescence spectra from Nd3+-implanted films of AlN, and from the 15 K photoluminescence excitation spectra and the site-selective combined excitation-emission spectra (CEES) recently reported for in situ Nd-doped hexagonal AlN grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE). CEES results identify a main site and two minority sites for Nd3+ in both samples. Transition line strengths attributed to the ion in minority sites are relatively stronger in Nd:AlN than in Nd:GaN. The 15 K experimental Zeeman splitting of Nd3+ are analyzed in the PA-MBE grown AlN samples and compared with the Zeeman splitting observed in Nd:GaN. The crystal-field and Zeeman splittings were modeled using a parametrized Hamiltonian consisting of atomic and crystal-field terms. We considered possible site distortion due to the size of the implanted Nd ion that would reduce the site symmetry from C3v to C3 or C1h. However, no significant improvement was obtained using these lower symmetry models, leading us to conclude that C3v symmetry is a reasonable approximation for the main site Nd3+ ions in AlN.

Journal Title

Optical Materials Express

First Page

1176

Last Page

1185

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