The temperature dependence of the luminescence of rare-earth-doped semiconductors: 25 years after Favennec

Twentyfive years after the publication of P. N. Favennec's seminal paper on luminescence from rare-earth-doped semiconductors (Electron. Lett. 25, 718-719 (1989), with 390+ citations to date) we examine the long shadow it has cast on recent studies of europium-doped GaN, aimed at substituting for InN-rich InGaN in red-light-emitting devices (LEDs). According to Favennec's principle, wider band gap semiconductors should show weaker thermal quenching, thus favouring the III-nitrides hugely. The conventional approach to fitting temperature dependences of light emission, based on competition between radiative and non-radiative transitions, is presented here in simplified form and an alternative fitting equation proposed. The original data of Favennec (op. cit.) is re-examined in the light of these fitting models.