Ultrafast broadband carrier and exciton dynamics of Fe-related centers in GaN

The effect of Fe defects on carrier recombination and two-photon induced ultrafast exciton dynamics in GaN crystals were investigated using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. The absorption kinetics exhibited completely different characteristics under different nonequilibrium carrier concentrations and distributions. The carrier recombination mechanisms under different excitation conditions can be interpreted by the model of Fe defect-related energy level. The absorption under one-photon excitation originates from the intraband transition of free holes, and the capture of holes by Fe2+ leads to the decay of the absorption. The ultrafast excitonic state [Fe2+,hVB] formation time under two-photon excitation results in a rapid absorption decay (<20 ps), while the long tail of the absorption response could be attributed to long-lived excitonic state (>100 ns). These findings are crucial to the applications of GaN for ultrafast optoelectronics and integrated nonlinear optics.