The role of hydrostatic stress in determining the bandgap of InN epilayers

We establish a correlation between the internal stress in InN epilayers and their optical properties such as the measured absorption band edge and photoluminescence emission wavelength. By a careful evaluation of the lattice constants of InN epilayers grown on c-plane sapphire substrates under various conditions by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy we find that the films are under primarily hydrostatic stress. This results in a shift in the band edge to higher energy. The effect is significant, and may be responsible for some of the variations in InN bandgap reported in the literature.