Excitation properties of the divacancy in 4H-SiC

Abstract

We investigate the quenching of the photoluminescence (PL) from the divacancy defect in 4H-SiC consisting of a nearest-neighbour silicon and carbon vacancies. The quenching occurs only when the PL is excited below certain photon energies (thresholds), which differ for the four different inequivalent divacancy configurations in 4H-SiC. Refined theoretical ab initio calculation for the charge-transfer levels of the divacancy show very good agreement between the position of the (0/-) level with respect to the conduction band for each divacancy configurations and the corresponding experimentally observed threshold, allowing us to associate the PL decay with conversion of the divacancy from neutral to negative charge state due to capture of electrons photoionized from other defects (traps) by the excitation. Electron paramagnetic resonance measurements are conducted in dark and under excitation similar to that used in the PL experiments and shed light on the possible origin of traps in the different samples. A simple model built on this concept agrees well with the experimentally-observed decay curves.

28 pages, 6 figures

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• Electrometry by optical charge conversion of deep defects in 4H-SiC
• Optical control of the charge state of color centers in hexagonal boron nitride
• Enhanced cavity coupling to silicon monovacancies in 4-H Silicon Carbide using below bandgap laser irradiation and low temperature thermal annealing
• Thermal evolution of silicon carbide electronic bands
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• Temperature dependence of the AB-lines and Optical Properties of the Carbon-Antisite Vacancy Pair in 4H-SiC
• Electromagnetically induced transparency in inhomogeneously broadened divacancy defect ensembles in SiC
• Photoelectrical detection and characterization of divacancy and PL5-PL7 spins in silicon carbide