Abstract
Aiming at application of GaN powders for phosphors, GaN crystalline powders doped with luminescent impurities have been synthesized by the two-stage vapor phase method. The source of impurity was placed at the same position in the reactor for the stage of particle growth, and supplied with GaCl to the reaction zone. With Tb, Tm and ZnS as sources, this method successfully produced GaN:Tb, GaN:Tm and GaNrZn powders with impurity concentrations of 6 × 10^<19>, 4 × 10^<20> and 1.5 × 10^<20> cm^<-3>, respectively. The GaN:Tb powder showed the photoluminescence (PL) emission bands due to the transitions of f-electrons in Tb^<3+> ions. It was found that the annealing at 1000 ℃ in the atmosphere of NH_3 activates the Zn centers in the GaN:Zn powder, resulting in the emission of blue PL.
