Theoretical model of excitonic luminescence and its application to the study of fine structure and exciton dynamics in ZnO

By solving the continuity equation of excitons under steady excitation, a theoretical model for the excitonic luminescence of semiconductors was developed taking into account the exciton diffusion and surface recombination. The theoretical model was used to analyze the photoluminescence (PL) spectra of ZnO obtained from the bulk single-crystal samples with and without surface passivation, showing that the nonradiative recombination on the surface is an important channel of losing excitons, thus substantially reducing the PL quantum efficiency of excitons at room temperature. In addition, the surface recombination was found to have impacts on the fine structure of excitonic luminescence at low temperature. Using the theoretical model, the diffusion length of excitons at room temperature was estimated and found to be different from sample to sample, strongly depending on the sample processing. The theoretical model was demonstrated to be capable of accurately fitting the temperature-dependent PL intensity of passivated samples and showed that the exciton diffusion has significant impacts on the dynamics of excitonic luminescence at high temperature. Published under license by AIP Publishing.