Experiment No-1 Photoluminance (PL: Objective

Experiment No-1
Photoluminance(PL)
Md Jawaid Alam
(134070025)
Objective: To understand of the band structure of the fabricated InAs/GaAs
based quantum dots using Photoluminescence (PL) method.
Theory: All solids, including semiconductors, have certain energy levels available
for electrons or carriers. Electrons having energies above a certain value are referred to
as conduction electrons, while electrons having energies below a certain value are
known as valence electrons. This is shown in the diagram where they are labeled as
conduction and valence bands.
There is an energy gap between the conduction and valence electron states. Under
normal conditions electrons are forbidden to have energies between the valence and
conduction bands. If a light particle (photon) has energy greater than the band gap
energy, then it can be absorbed and thereby raise an electron from the valence band
up to the conduction band across the forbidden energy gap. (See diagram.) In this
process of photo excitation, the electron generally has excess energy which it loses
before coming to rest at the lowest energy in the conduction band. At this point the
electron eventually falls back down to the valence band. As it falls down, the
energy it loses is converted back into a luminescent photon which is emitted from
the material. The process of photon excitation followed by photon emission is
called photoluminescence
Change in Energy band structure due to restrictions in dimensions:
As we know that in bulk semiconductors valance band and conduction bands are almost
continuous band of available energy states with finite probability of occupancy given by
Fermi Dirac equation. But when any one dimension of the solid is restricted to few nano
meters then these energy states are no longer continuous but discrete. The
phenomenon is more significant in quantum dots, where ideally you can say only few
energy states are available. The separation between these energy increases as we shrink
all three spatial dimensions more tightly as shown in Figure. One can see in the
photoluminance spectrum the two peaks are almost separated by more than 70nm.
Experimental Setup of Photo luminance study
We have used SpectraSense Software for getting the spectral response from the sample
Ques 1: Plot wavelength in nanometer (X-axis) vs Intensity (Y-axis) in any
six temperature, measure full width half maxima (FWHM).
Here I have matched the wavelength axis but for PL Current it is not matched.
Discussion of the Result:
As we can see from the graph that
1. Peak corresponding to the first main lobe shifts towards higher wavelengths
(corresponding to lower energy) with increase in the temperature from 8K to
300K.
2. The maximum photo current for a fixed bias decreases exponentially with
temperature.

Assuming that saturation has not occurred and all states
are filled approx equally then uppermost energy level
which requires minimum activation energy will have
maximum current at particular temperature.
As temperature has increased so even lower energy(i.e.
longer wavelength) states can contribute to the maxima
and hence peak will shift towards higher wavelengths by
increasing temperature.
Temp(K) 1000/T FWHM Main lobe Area(I(T)) I(T)/I(0) ln(I(T)/I(0))
8 125 43.36335 3706176.031 1 0
50 20 40.78406 3313041.152 0.893924391 -0.1121341
100 10 41.81979 3153067.856 0.850760414 -0.1616247
200 5 45.31785 1774869.157 0.478894997 -0.7362739
250 4 42.24983 623208.655 0.168154089 -1.7828745
300 3.3333 40.37952 92527.195 0.024965677 -3.6902533
Calculation of Activation Energy:
In the table we found FWHM
and main lobe area I(T) from
the peak fitting of individual
graphs at different
temperatures. It is given in the
table. Then we have plotted the
normalised Intensity over
1000/T on a logarithmic scale.

Activation energy can be found
by the slope of the
approximately linear region.
( )
0.5 3.6902533
7 3.33333
0.87008
slope

=
=
0.87008
0.87008 .
A
A
E
kT
E kT
~
=
Discussion on the Activation energy:
The plots of the IPL intensities of the QDs for various inverse temperatures in Figure
show three dominant regions:
a. Temperature region I (T < 50 K) is the low region where a small quenching of
IPL is ob- served. The quenching is attributed to trapped carriers from localized
regions due to potential fluctuations followed by nonradioactive recombination.
b. Temperature region II (50 K < T < 130 K) is an intermediate region where the
IPL starts to drop gradually, but not yet exponentially.
c. Temperature region III (130 K < T < 300 K) is the region of strong thermal
quenching where the curves tend towards a straight line and a characteristic of
exponential quenching /exp(Ea=kT) appears.

d. In general one can approximate I(T) as given below.
( ) ( )
3 1 2
1 2 3
0 1 exp exp exp
A A A
E E E
I T I C C C
kT kT kT
(
| | | | | |
= + + +
| | | (
\ . \ . \ .

And activation energies can be found for different peaks by slope of the normalised
logarithmic graph as shown above
Conclusion:
PL is a simple experiment which can provide a lot of information about

I. the sample-band structure
II. Activation Energy of the sample
III. Density of dots
IV. Optical efficiency of the sample

One should must do this characterisation before going for further device
synthesis.

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