• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.127-132
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• 2009

We have investigated the intrinsic defects remaining in epitaxial GaSb layers grown on SI-GaAs substrates compared to those in bulk GaSb crystal substrate, which is a basic material of Sb-based strained-layer superlattice infrared photodetectors. From the functional dependence of the band-to-band transition energy of the photomuminescence (PL) spectra observing up to near room-temperature (250 K), the temperature parameters of [$E_o$, $\alpha$, $\beta$] of undoped GaSb crystal are determined by using the Varshni empirical equation describing the temperature variation of the bandgap energy. Additionally to the antisite-Ga ([$Ga_{Sb}$]) with an ionization energy of 29 meV that is well known to a major intrinsic defect in GaSb, epitaxial GaSb layers show a pair of deep states at the emission energy of 732/711 meV that may be related with a complex of two antisite-Ga and antisite-Sb ([$Ga_{Sb}-Sb_{Ga}$]). Based on the analysis of the temperature and the excitation-power dependences of PL, it suggests that excess-Sb substitutes Ga-site by self-diffusion and two anti sites of [$Ga_{Sb}$] and [$Sb_{Ga}$] could form as a complex of [$Ga_{Sb}-Sb_{Ga}$] in GaSb epilayers grown under Sb-rich condition.