Carrier diffusion processes near threading dislocations in GaN and GaN:Si characterized by low voltage cathodoluminescence

We present a low temperature study of GaN epilayers by means of low voltage cathodoluminescence (CL). We show that lowering the primary electrons accelerating voltage down to 1 kV allows imaging of single threading dislocations. By using monochromatic or panchromatic low voltage CL microscopy, it is possible to extract different diffusion lengths related to free excitons, bound excitons or donor-to-acceptor pair transitions.