Isotope engineering of van der Waals interactions in hexagonal boron nitride.

Hexagonal boron nitride is a model lamellar compound where weak, non-local van der Waals interactions ensure the vertical stacking of two-dimensional honeycomb lattices made of strongly bound boron and nitrogen atoms. We study the isotope engineering of lamellar compounds by synthesizing hexagonal boron nitride crystals with nearly pure boron isotopes (10B and 11B) compared to those with the natural distribution of boron (20 at% 10B and 80 at% 11B). On the one hand, as with standard semiconductors, both the phonon energy and electronic bandgap varied with the boron isotope mass, the latter due to the quantum effect of zero-point renormalization. On the other hand, temperature-dependent experiments focusing on the shear and breathing motions of adjacent layers revealed the specificity of isotope engineering in a layered material, with a modification of the van der Waals interactions upon isotope purification. The electron density distribution is more diffuse between adjacent layers in 10BN than in 11BN crystals. Our results open perspectives in understanding and controlling van der Waals bonding in layered materials.

Cathodoluminescence study of Mg activation in non-polar and semi-polar faces of undoped/Mg-doped GaN core-shell nanorods.

Spectrally and spatially resolved cathodoluminescence (CL) measurements were carried out at 80 K on undoped/Mg-doped GaN core-shell nanorods grown by selective area growth metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy in order to investigate locally the optical activity of the Mg dopants. A study of the luminescence emission distribution over the different regions of the nanorods is presented. We have investigated the CL fingerprints of the Mg incorporation into the non-polar lateral prismatic facets and the semi-polar facets of the pyramidal tips. The amount of Mg incorporation/activation was varied by using several Mg/Ga flow ratios and post-growth annealing treatment. For lower Mg/Ga flow ratios, the annealed nanorods clearly display a donor-acceptor pair band emission peaking at 3.26-3.27 eV and up to 4 LO phonon replicas, which can be considered as a reliable indicator of effective p-type Mg doping in the nanorod shell. For higher Mg/Ga flow ratios, a substantial enhancement of the yellow luminescence emission as well as several emission subbands are observed, which suggests an increase of disorder and the presence of defects as a consequence of the excess Mg doping.

Longer InN phonon lifetimes in nanowires.

We present a Raman scattering study of the anharmonic phonon decay of the [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and E1(LO) phonons in InN nanowires over the 80-400 K temperature range. While the temperature-dependent anharmonic decay in the nanowires is similar to that found for bulk InN, the background contribution to the phonon lifetime is strongly reduced as a result of the improved crystalline quality. High-resolution measurements reveal a remarkably long lifetime of the [Formula: see text] mode. From the comparison between the [Formula: see text] frequencies measured in the nanowires with those of the thin film we obtain the deformation potentials for the [Formula: see text] mode.

Raman scattering study of background electron density in InN: a hydrodynamical approach to the LO-phonon-plasmon coupled modes.

We use a hydrodynamical approach to analyse the long-wavelength LO-phonon-plasmon coupled modes observed in a set of high-quality MBE-grown InN epilayers with electron densities varying over one order of magnitude, from ∼2 × 10(18) to ∼2 × 10(19)  cm(-3). The samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction and Hall measurements. The correlation observed between the E(2)(high) mode frequency, and hence residual strain, and the electron density measured in the layers indicates that the differences in background electron density may be associated with threading dislocations. Owing to the low Raman signal, only the L(-) branch of the coupled modes can be unambiguously observed. The frequency of the L(-) Raman peak is, however, sensitive enough to the free electron density to allow its determination from lineshape fits to the spectra. These were carried out using an extended hydrodynamical model. Given the small bandgap energy and large conduction band nonparabolicity of InN, suitable expressions for the optical effective mass and mean square velocity that enter the hydrodynamical model were derived. Electron density values extracted from L(-) lineshape fits agree reasonably well with Hall determinations.