Growth and characterization of GaN nanoparticles on P-type Si (100) substrate by plasma focus device with nitrogen plasma

•A Mather type plasma focus device was used to grow semiconductor material gallium nitride.•Photoluminescence spectrometry shows emission peaks in violet 420 nm wavelength.•UV-Vis-NIR shows most reflectance at near ultraviolet.

A Mather type plasma focus device (PFD) was used to grow semiconductor material gallium nitride nanoparticles on P-type silicon (100) with nitrogen as working gas. Two, four and six amount of plasma focus shots were applied to 3 Silicon substrates, field emission scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy indicated spherical gallium nitride nanoparticles nearly similar to gallium nitride quantum dots on the substrate that was deposited with two shots. Photoluminescence spectrometry shows emission peaks in violet 420 nm (2.95 eV) wavelength in all three samples, additionally as the shots increased small peaks at near ultraviolet 360 nm (3.44 eV) were observed. UV-Vis-NIR shows most reflectance at near ultraviolet for the second sample with four shots, as X-ray diffraction shows only some peaks for the third sample with six shots which indicates the low quality of gallium nitride crystalline formation.