Optical and electrical properties of Si+ ion-implanted GaAs

Low temperature photoluminescence (PL) measurements of Si+ ion-implanted GaAs samples were investigated by varying the ion beam current. Electrical measurements proved that higher activation rates can be obtained by using low ion beam currents (3 nA cm−2) compared with higher ones (60 nA cm−2). In the PL spectra, broad emissions at 840–850 nm can be observed when the dose is higher than 2×1013 cm−2 and it is more noticeable when using high ion beam current. Since the broad PL emission appears when electrical activation rate decreases, we tentatively attributed this broad emission to a defect-related one.