The convergence of longitudinal excitons onto the Γ5 transverse exciton in GaN and the thermal activation energy of longitudinal excitons.

The crystal orientation dependence of GaN excitons was investigated via the photoluminescence (PL) technique. The PL emissions at a temperature of 10 K were obtained from two experimental configurations where the emission K vector (the propagation vector) was either parallel (K ∥ c) or perpendicular (K ∥ c) to the crystal c-axis. Longitudinal, transverse and donor-bound excitons were observed in the two configurations. However, the longitudinal excitons converged onto the transverse free exciton Γ5 in the K⊥c emission. This behavior was discussed in terms of electron screening due to the scattering of electrons moving perpendicular to charged dislocation lines. Additionally, the thermal activation energy of the longitudinal excitons was calculated from the temperature dependent PL measurements collected from the K ∥ c emission, and was found to be 5 to 6 times as high as the binding energy of the free excitons. This high energy was interpreted tentatively in view of the creation of polaritons in strong exciton-photon coupling regimes. These findings present fundamental concepts for applications such as vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and polariton lasers.