Local excitation and emission dynamics of an isolated single basal-plane stacking-fault in GaN studied by spatio-time-resolved cathodoluminescence

Local excitation and emission dynamics of an isolated "Type-I₁" basal-plane stacking-fault (BSF) in very low dislocation density GaN were studied using spatio-time-resolved cathodoluminescence. The low temperature lifetime of the BSF emission was quantified to be 640 ps. The carrier diffusion length was estimated by observing the temporal delay of the BSF peak relative to the free-exciton signal as a function of distance from the BSF. The results indicate that the near-band-edge emission leads to subsequent optical excitation of the BSF that increases the apparent diffusion length. Limiting the observation volume can improve the spatial resolution.