Photoluminescence of gallium arsenide encapsulated with aluminum nitride and silicon nitride

Aluminum nitride and silicon nitride films were deposited on lightly doped n-type GaAs : Si by low-energy ion beam sputtering. Mechanically, the films were stable at annealing temperatures above 900 °C. In contrast to bare GaAs and previously reported encapsulation with Si3N4, where the 1.36-eV line appears at relatively low annealing temperatures, there was no change in the photoluminescence spectrum until the samples were annealed at 800 °C in the case of aluminum nitride and 900 °C for silicon nitride.