A low temperature photoluminescence (PL) measurement facility connected with an IBM-PC microcomputer is set up for PL measurement of solid state materials especially for Ⅲ-Ⅴ and

Ⅱ-Ⅴ semiconductor compounds. It is named as PL-PC and as shown in Fig.1. The system is interfaced with a data acquisition system (DAS)

the series 500 of Keithley Company of the United States. Convenient control and efficient data processes are demonstrated in PL-PC experiments.There are many special functions in this PL-PC system for automatic control and convenient use . (1) The spectrum monochromator and chart recorder can be started and stopped automatically by the control of computer key board

or by the designed program. The intensity of input signal can be checked and the output signal would be automatically adjusted by the program. (2) There are different data acquisition abilities

and they can be adjusted to fit varied situations. The resolution of measured spectrum can be chosen as fine as 0.04Å which is good enough for most of grating monochromators in which the resolution is only about 0.1Å. In the case of signal automeasurement

the lowest measurable value can be adjusted to find the fine structure in the PL spectrum. (3) Many data processes are set up by the Series 500. The wavelength and photon energy can be shown and calculated immediately. The intensity of spectrum is corrected according to the spectra responsibility of different detectors

such as the photomultiplier

Ge detector and so on

and can be smoothed to draw out a satisfactory curve. The position of the main peak of luminescence spectra and its full width at the half maximum value are given automatically.(4) The output data can be shown in a variety of ways:data curves on the computer display screen

the printer output and chart recorder curves. Also all of the data can be saved on the floppy disk

which may be used to compare with relevant PL results.In the computer system

soft 500 with basic language is successively used to control and plan all the PL measurement processes

A menu block structure is set up

and all the control orders can be shown on the screen to guide the operator to select and to use this system easily. A PL measurement result of semiconductor HgI

2

with this PL-PC system is given to show the characteristics of output data. This system is helpful for PL experiment and can be expanded to other physical test applications

such as DLTS and optical waveguide measurement.This work was finished in Dept. of ECE

UCSB

U. S. A. Thanks are indebted to Prof. J.L.Merz and the optoelectronics research group for their helps.