Femtosecond pump-probe absorption edge spectroscopy of cubic GaN

Time-dependent femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopic ellipsometry studies on zincblende gallium-nitride (zb-GaN) are performed and analyzed between 2.9-3.7eV. An ultra-fast change of the absorption onset (3.23eV for zb-GaN) is observed by investigating the imaginary part of the dielectric function. The 266nm (4.66eV) pump pulses induce a large free-carrier concentration up to $4\times 10^{20}$cm$^{-3}$, influencing the transition energy between conduction and valence bands due to many-body effects, like band filling and band gap renormalization, up to $\approx$500meV. Additionally, the absorption of the pump-beam creates a free-carrier profile within the 605nm zb-GaN layer. This leads to varying optical properties from sample surface to substrate, which are taken into account by grading analysis for an accurate description of the experimental data. A temporal resolution of 100fs allows in-depth investigations of occurring ultra-fast relaxation and recombination processes. We provide a quantitative description of the free-carrier concentration and absorption onset at the sample surface as a function of relaxation, recombination, and diffusion yielding a characteristic relaxation time of 0.19ps and a recombination time of 26.1ps.