Temperature dependence of the band gap of zinc nitride observed in photoluminescence measurements

We report the photoluminescence properties of DC sputtered zinc nitride thin films in the temperature range of 3.7–300 K. Zinc nitride samples grown at 150 °C exhibited a narrow photoluminescence band at 1.38 eV and a broad band at 0.90 eV, which were attributed to the recombination of free carriers with a bound state and deep-level defect states, respectively. The high-energy band followed the Varshni equation with temperature and became saturated at high excitation powers. These results indicate that the high-energy band originates from shallow defect states in a narrow bandgap. Furthermore, a red-shift of the observed features with increasing excitation power suggested the presence of inhomogeneities within the samples.