In a joint experimental/theoretical work with CNR-ISM, Department of Physics UniSapienza, CNISM, CNR-IFN, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Physics and Materials Sciences Center, Marburg (Germany), Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Laboratory of Physics of Nanostructures, Lausanne (Switzerland) and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Department of Physics, Haifa (Israel), we investigated the reason why hydrogenation in InGaAsN alloys does not fully recovers band gap sistematically the same way it occurs in GaAsN alloys. In order to understand such a phenomenon we proposed to shift the focus from the defect itself to the effects induced by its environment.
While N-H defects form both in In-rich and Ga-rich environments, only in the In-rich N environment, the InyGa1−yAs host matrix exerts a selective action on the N–H complexes by hindering the formation of the complexes more effective in the N passivation.