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Direct-bandgap properties and evidence for ultraviolet lasing of hexagonal boron nitride single crystal

Nature Materials volume 3, pages 404–409 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

The demand for compact ultraviolet laser devices is increasing, as they are essential in applications such as optical storage, photocatalysis, sterilization, ophthalmic surgery and nanosurgery. Many researchers are devoting considerable effort to finding materials with larger bandgaps than that of GaN. Here we show that hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is a promising material for such laser devices because it has a direct bandgap in the ultraviolet region. We obtained a pure hBN single crystal under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions, which shows a dominant luminescence peak and a series of s-like exciton absorption bands around 215 nm, proving it to be a direct-bandgap material. Evidence for room-temperature ultraviolet lasing at 215 nm by accelerated electron excitation is provided by the enhancement and narrowing of the longitudinal mode, threshold behaviour of the excitation current dependence of the emission intensity, and a far-field pattern of the transverse mode.

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Figure 1: Example of cathodoluminescence spectrum for hexagonal boron nitride at room temperature.
Figure 2: Fundamental absorption spectrum at 8 K and luminescence spectrum at 83 K.
Figure 3: Expanded view of the fundamental absorption spectrum around the 2s-like exciton structure.
Figure 4: Excitation current dependence of the 215.0-nm luminescence band.
Figure 5: Excitation current dependence of the peak intensity and the fringe linewidth at 215.0 nm.
Figure 6: Change of far-field pattern for transverse mode above threshold.
Figure 7

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Koizumi and M. Katagiri for technical support in the lasing experiments, and T. Kuroda and K. Kobayashi for useful suggestions on the band structure of hBN.

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  1. Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044, Japan

    Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi & Hisao Kanda

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  1. Kenji Watanabe
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Correspondence to Kenji Watanabe.

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Watanabe, K., Taniguchi, T. & Kanda, H. Direct-bandgap properties and evidence for ultraviolet lasing of hexagonal boron nitride single crystal. Nature Mater 3, 404–409 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1134

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