Excitonic optical properties of GaN homoepitaxial layers have been studied by means of magneto-luminescence and time-resolved luminescence spectroscopy. The luminescence lines due to the radiative recombination of excitons bound to neutral donors and acceptors have been measured under magnetic field up to 8 T, which was aligned perpendicular and parallel to the hexagonal c-axis. Under the magnetic field aligned perpendicular to the hexagonal c-axis, both the donor- and acceptor-bound-exciton lines clearly split into two components, which originated from the Zeeman splitting. The effective g-factors for both the donor- and acceptor-bound excitons were estimated to be 2.02 and 2.47, respectively. Under the magnetic field aligned parallel to the hexagonal c-axis, slight broadening of the bound-exciton lines was observed and the Zeeman splitting was too small to be detected. On the other hand, the diamagnetic shift for both the donor- and acceptor-bound-exciton luminescence lines was observed under the magnetic field aligned both perpendicular and parallel to the hexagonal c-axis. It was found that the diamagnetic shift of the donor-bound exciton was smaller than that of the acceptor-bound exciton. Furthermore, recombination dynamics of excitonic transitions was measured under high-density excitation. An excitation-density-dependent transition of the dominant radiative recombination process from donor-bound excitons to biexcitons was clearly observed in the temporal behavior. In addition, double-exponential decay of biexciton luminescence was observed, which is one of the characteristics of biexciton luminescence at high excitation densities.

In this paper, the recent development of GaN bulk substrates is reviewed. Among various works on HVPE thick epitaxial growth, the largest free-standing GaN substrates upto 34 cm2 has been first obtained by the HVPE method using NGO substrates, whose lattice constant has a good matching with that of GaN. For developing larger GaN substrates with lower production cost, the ultra-high pressure solution growth method is being developed not only in Poland but also in Japan under "The Light for the 21st Century" national project.