H.H. Tan

Damage to epitaxial GaN layers by silicon implantation

Ion channeling and cross‐sectional transmission electron microscopy were used to study the extent and nature of Si ion implantation damage in epitaxial GaN layers at liquid nitrogen temperature. Results indicate that displacement damage produced by the implantation undergoes substantial dynamic annealing during implantation. As a result, at moderate implantation doses residual implantation damage consists of a dense network of secondary defects, such as clusters and loops, which are a consequence of incomplete annihilation of implantation‐produced defects. Amorphous layers can be produced, but the doses required are extremely high (≳1016 cm−2) and amorphization appears to ‘‘nucleate’’ at the surface.

Electrical and structural analysis of high-dose Si implantation in GaN

For the development of ion implantation processes for GaN to advanced devices, it is important to understand the dose dependence of impurity activation along with implantation-induced damage generation and removal. We find that Si implantation in GaN can achieve 50% activation at a dose of 1×1016 cm-2, despite significant residual damage after the 1100 °C activation anneal. The possibility that the generated free carriers are due to implantation damage alone and not Si-donor activation is ruled out by comparing the Si results to those for implantation of the neutral species Ar. Ion channeling and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy are used to characterize the implantation-induced damage both as implanted and after a 1100 °C anneal. Both techniques confirm that significant damage remains after the anneal, which suggests that activation of implanted Si donors in GaN doses not require complete damage removal. However, an improved annealing process may be needed to further optimize the transport properties of implanted regions in GaN.

Large energy shifts in GaAs‐AlGaAs quantum wells by proton irradiation‐induced intermixing

Proton irradiation and subsequent rapid‐thermal annealing are used to create intermixing in GaAs‐Al0.54Ga0.46As quantum wells of various thicknesses. Very large energy shifts (up to 200 meV) with no apparent saturation have been observed even up to a dose of about 4×1016 cm−2. This effect is explained in terms of the dilute irradiation damage and the evolution of discrete (point) defects during annealing. In comparison to heavy ion irradiation effects, high point defect fraction in the case of light ions leads to efficient intermixing with large energy shifts. Although much of the proton energy loss occurs across the quantum wells, the generated defect density is dilute, and hence good recovery in photoluminescence intensities is achieved after rapid thermal annealing.

Annealing of ion implanted gallium nitride

In this paper, we examine Si and Te ion implant damage removal in GaN as a function of implantation dose, and implantation and annealing temperature. Transmission electron microscopy shows that amorphous layers, which can result from high-dose implantation, recrystallize between 800 and 1100 °C to very defective polycrystalline material. Lower-dose implants (down to 5×1013 cm−2), which are not amorphous but defective after implantation, also anneal poorly up to 1100 °C, leaving a coarse network of extended defects. Despite such disorder, a high fraction of Te is found to be substitutional in GaN both following implantation and after annealing. Furthermore, although elevated-temperature implants result in less disorder after implantation, this damage is also impossible to anneal out completely by 1100 °C. The implications of this study are that considerably higher annealing temperatures will be needed to remove damage for optimum electrical properties.

Ion damage buildup and amorphization processes in AlxGa1-xAs

The nature of keV ion damage buildup and amorphization in AlxGa1−xAs at liquid‐nitrogen temperature is investigated for various Al compositions using Rutherford backscattering channeling, transmission electron microscopy, and in situ time‐resolved‐reflectivity techniques. Two distinct damage buildup processes are observed in AlxGa1−xAs depending on Al content. At low Al content, the behavior is similar to GaAs whereby collisional disorder is ‘‘frozen in’’ and amorphization proceeds with increasing dose via the overlap of damage cascades and small amorphous zones created by individual ion tracks. However, some dynamic annealing occurs during implantation in AlGaAs and this effect is accentuated with increasing Al content. For high Al content, crystallinity is retained at moderate ion damage with disorder building up in the form of stacking faults, planar, and other extended defects. In the latter case, amorphization is nucleation limited and proceeds abruptly when the level of crystalline disorder exceeds ...

Picosecond carrier lifetime in GaAs implanted with high doses of As ions: An alternative material to low‐temperature GaAs for optoelectronic applications

Nonstoichiometric GaAs obtained by implantation with 2 MeV arsenic ions at 1015 cm−2 dose is studied. As‐implanted samples show a <200 fs lifetime of photocarriers and low resistivity due to hopping, with mobility less than 1 cm2/V s. Annealing of the samples at 600 °C leads to substantial recovery of postimplant damage, as seen from Rutherford backscattering channeling spectra and mobility increase to about 2000 cm2/V s, but photocarrier lifetime is still about 1 ps. These parameters are similar to those of low‐temperature GaAs annealed at 600 °C, and make arsenic implanted GaAs an interesting material for optoelectronic applications.

Long minority carrier lifetime in Au-catalyzed GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs core-shell nanowires

The Australian Research Council is acknowledged for the financial support and the authors acknowledge the use of facilities in the Centre for Advanced Microscopy (AMMRF node) and the ACT node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility for this work.

Wavelength shifting in GaAs quantum well lasers by proton irradiation

Proton irradiation followed by rapid thermal annealing was used to selectively induce layer intermixing and thus shift the emission wavelengths of GaAs–AlGaAs graded-index separate-confinement-heterostructure quantum well lasers. Up to 40 nm shifts were observed in 4 μm ridge waveguide devices irradiated to a dose of 1.5×1016 cm−2. Although the wavelength shifts were accompanied by some degradation in the lasing threshold current and differential quantum efficiency, they were still quite acceptable at moderate wavelength shifts. This technique provides a simple and promising postgrowth process of integrating lasers of different wavelengths for wavelength-division-multiplexing applications.

In/sub 0.5/Ga/sub 0.5/As/GaAs quantum dot infrared photodetectors grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition

We report the growth by low-pressure metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, fabrication, and characterization of ten-layer In/sub 0.5/Ga/sub 0.5/As/GaAs quantum dot infrared photodetectors. Normal incidence photoresponse of the detector was obtained at 5.9 /spl mu/m. The 77-K peak responsivity was 5.6 mA/W with the detectivity D/sup */ of 1.2/spl times/10/sup 9/ cm/spl middot/Hz/sup 1/2//W at the bias of 0.4 V.

Proton-irradiation-induced intermixing of InGaAs quantum dots

Proton irradiation was used to create interdiffusion in In0.5Ga0.5As quantum dots (QDs), grown by low-pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. After 25-keV proton irradiation, the QD samples were annealed at two temperatures (700 or 750 °C) for 30 s. It was found that much lower annealing temperatures were needed to recover the photoluminescence signals than in the quantum-well case. Large blueshifts (120 meV) and narrowing of the photoluminescence spectra were seen. Various doses (5×1013–1×1015 cm−2) and implant temperatures (20–200 °C) were used to study the interdiffusion processes in these samples. In QD samples, much lower doses were required to achieve similar energy shifts than reported in quantum-well samples.