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Gallium nitride co-doped with magnesium and europium shows great potential for active layers in red light emitting diode structures due to strong and sharp luminescence emission around 620 nm. In this work, sharp and intense Eu3+ luminescence lines from the excited states of the 5D J (J = 0, 1) multiplets to the ground states of the 7F J (J = 0, 1, 2) multiplets have been analyzed using a C 2 v crystal-field equivalent operator Hamiltonian. A model of Eu centers with the C 2 v symmetry has been proposed to be an Eu3+ complex accompanied by either a pair of nitrogen and gallium vacancies (V N - V Ga) or a pair consisting of a nitrogen vacancy and magnesium impurity (V N - Mg Ga) in the vicinity of the Eu ion based on the crystal-field analysis, the selection rules and the observed polarization of the Eu3+ luminescence lines. Energy transfer from the host to the Eu ions under band-to-band excitation occurs through electron-hole recombination between V N with the electron-like state and V Ga or Mg Ga with the hole-like state; these may be associated with the shallow-trapped or deep-trapped states, respectively, proposed as the energy transfer mechanism in previous literature. • Polarized photoluminescence/cascade-luminescence from ex situ Eu-doped GaN(Mg). • Energy levels/states of 7F 0 ,7F 1 and 7F 2 multiplets of Eu3+ experimentally estimated. • Model of Eu centers in GaN(Mg) with C 2 v (orthorhombic) symmetry proposed. • Eu complex with N/Ga vacancy pair, or a pair consisting of N vacancy and Mg impurity. • Energy transfer GaN.→Eu via recombination between these electron-like/hole-like states [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a modified version of the Judd-Ofelt theory, which describes the intensities of f-f transitions for trivalent lanthanide ions (Ln3+) in solids. In our model, the properties of the dopant are calculated with well-established atomic-structure techniques, while the influence of the crystal-field potential is described as a perturbation, by three adjustable parameters. Compared to our previous work (Hovhannesyan et al., 2022 [28]), the spin-orbit interaction within the first excited configuration 4f w − 1 5d is described in a perturbative way, whereas it is exactly taken into account in the ground configuration 4f w , using all the eigenvector components of the free-ion levels. Moreover, the wavelength-dependence of the refractive index of the host material is also accounted for. We test the validity of our model on three ions: Eu3+, Nd3+ and Er3+. The results of the extension are satisfactory, we are able to give a physical insight into all the transitions within the ground electronic configuration, and also to reproduce quantitatively experimental absorption oscillator strengths. We also performed calculations of standard JO parameters, and the results are in good agreement with the values reported in the literature. The code used to make the calculations is available on GitLab. • An extension of Judd-Ofelt theory is developed. • The model is based on accurately calculated free-ion properties. • Model is validated on trivalent Eu, Nd and Er. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]