L. C. Le

Investigation on the compensation effect of residual carbon impurities in low temperature grown Mg doped GaN films

The influence of unintentionally doped carbon impurities on electrical resistivity and yellow luminescence (YL) of low-temperature (LT) grown Mg doped GaN films is investigated. It is found that the resistivity of Mg doped GaN films are closely related to the residual carbon impurity concentration, which may be attributed to the compensation effect of carbon impurities. The carbon impurity may preferentially form deep donor complex CN-ON resulting from its relatively low formation energy. This complex is an effective compensate center for MgGa acceptors as well as inducing YL in photoluminescence spectra. Thus, the low resistivity LT grown p-type GaN films can be obtained only when the residual carbon impurity concentration is sufficiently low, which can explain why LT P-GaN films with lower resistivity were obtained more easily when relatively higher pressure, temperature, or NH3/TMGa flow rate ratio were used in the LT grown Mg doped GaN films reported in earlier reports.

Effects of thin heavily Mg-doped GaN capping layer on ohmic contact formation of p-type GaN

The growth condition of thin heavily Mg-doped GaN capping layer and its effect on ohmic contact formation of p-type GaN were investigated. It is confirmed that the excessive Mg doping can effectively enhance the Ni/Au contact to p-GaN after annealing at 550 degrees C. When the flow rate ratio between Mg and Ga gas sources is 6.4% and the layer width is 25 nm, the capping layer grown at 850 degrees C exhibits the best ohmic contact properties with respect to the specific contact resistivity (rho(c)). This temperature is much lower than the conventional growth temperature of Mg-doped GaN, suggesting that the deep-level-defect induced band may play an important role in the conduction of capping layer.

Suppression of electron leakage by inserting a thin undoped InGaN layer prior to electron blocking layer in InGaN-based blue-violet laser diodes

InGaN-based blue-violet laser diodes (LDs) suffer from electron leakage into the p-type regions, which could be only partially alleviated by employing the electron blocking layer (EBL). Here, a thin undoped InGaN interlayer prior to EBL is proposed to create an additional forbidden energy range above the natural conduction band edge, which further suppresses the electron leakage and thus improve the characteristics of LDs. Numerical device simulations reveal that when the proper composition and thickness of InGaN interlayer are chosen, the electron leakage could be efficiently eliminated without inducing any severe accumulation of electrons at the interlayer, resulting in a maximum output power of the device.

Effect of V-defects on the performance deterioration of InGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-well light-emitting diodes with varying barrier layer thickness

The effect of quantum barrier (QB) thickness on performances of InGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-well light-emitting diodes (MQW LEDs) with relatively large barrier layer thicknesses has been investigated. It is found that the density and averaged size of V-defects increases with QB thickness, resulting in larger reverse- and forward-bias current in LEDs. Electroluminescence measurement shows that LED with thinner QB has higher internal quantum efficiency but lower efficiency droop-onset current density, which should be ascribed to the faster saturation of carrier leakage into V-defects. Correspondingly, above the droop-onset current density, severer Auger recombination and carrier overflow are induced by higher carrier density due to the less V-defect related carrier leakage, leading to the more serious droop phenomenon in LEDs with thinner QB.

Optical and structural characteristics of high indium content InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells with varying GaN cap layer thickness

The optical and structural properties of InGaN/GaN multi-quantum wells (MQWs) with different thicknesses of low temperature grown GaN cap layers are investigated. It is found that the MQW emission energy red-shifts and the peak intensity decreases with increasing GaN cap layer thickness, which may be partly caused by increased floating indium atoms accumulated at quantum well (QW) surface. They will result in the increased interface roughness, higher defect density, and even lead to a thermal degradation of QW layers. An extra growth interruption introduced before the growth of GaN cap layer can help with evaporating the floating indium atoms, and therefore is an effective method to improve the optical properties of high indium content InGaN/GaN MQWs.

The significant effect of the thickness of Ni film on the performance of the Ni/Au Ohmic contact to p-GaN

The significant effect of the thickness of Ni film on the performance of the Ohmic contact of Ni/Au to p-GaN is studied. The Ni/Au metal films with thickness of 15/50 nm on p-GaN led to better electrical characteristics, showing a lower specific contact resistivity after annealing in the presence of oxygen. Both the formation of a NiO layer and the evolution of metal structure on the sample surface and at the interface with p-GaN were checked by transmission electron microscopy and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. The experimental results indicate that a too thin Ni film cannot form enough NiO to decrease the barrier height and get Ohmic contact to p-GaN, while a too thick Ni film will transform into too thick NiO cover on the sample surface and thus will also deteriorate the electrical conductivity of sample.

Unintentionally doped semi-insulating GaN with a low dislocation density grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition

Unintentionally doped semi-insulating GaN films possessing a low dislocation density are grown via metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy on a sapphire substrate. The obtained electrical resistivity reaches 4.8 × .a8 Ω·cm, and the full width at half maximum of the x-ray diffraction rocking curves of the (002) and (102) planes is as low as 201.6 and 378.0 arcsec, respectively. The GaN films are grown at low pressure (LP) to introduce residual carbon and to compensate background donors. The dislocation density in these samples is significantly reduced by using a low V/III ratio in the initial epitaxial growth stage. It is also found that the resistivity of the LP-grown samples decrease when the residual carbon concentration is excessive, which is attributed to the self-compensation of carbon impurities. Therefore, the carbon concentration of LP-grown GaN should be carefully modulated to maintain its high resistivity.

Effect of light Si-doping on the near-band-edge emissions in high quality GaN

We have investigated the effect of light Si-doping on the optical properties of high quality GaN films with the method of low temperature photoluminescence. It is found that the peak (Ix) at 3.473 eV always appears in the photoluminescence spectra of lightly Si-doped GaN. The relative intensity of peak Ix to heavy-hole free exciton peak increases linearly with the increasing concentration of Si doping, providing a strong support to the assignment that Ix originates from inelastic scattering of free excitons by Si donors. In addition, a rarely reported peak (Px) at 3.365 eV can only be clearly observed in the PL spectrum of unintentionally doped GaN sample. Its intensity is found to reduce dramatically with the decrease of residual carbon concentration based on the secondary ion mass spectrometry analysis. Px is attributed to the excitons bound to carbon-related complex defects.

Improvement of characteristics of InGaN-based laser diodes with undoped InGaN upper waveguide layer

In the structure of conventional InGaN-based laser diodes, considerable optical absorption loss exists in the p-doped region, especially in the p-doped upper waveguide layer. A structure of InGaN-based laser diodes with an undoped InGaN upper waveguide layer instead of p-doped GaN was designed and optimized. Instead of being located between AlGaN EBL and AlGaN cladding layer, the undoped InGaN layer was positioned between the AlGaN electron blocking layer and the active region of multi-quantum well. The optical and electrical characteristics of this type of laser diodes were simulated by the commercial software lastip, and it was found that the optical absorption loss was obviously lowered. Further theoretical analysis showed that the undoped InGaN upper waveguide layer eliminated the influence of electron leakage current, leading to a reduction of threshold current density and an increase of output light power of the InGaN-based laser diodes.

Different variation behaviors of resistivity for high-temperature-grown and low-temperature-grown p-GaN films*

Two series of p-GaN films grown at different temperatures are obtained by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). And the different variation behaviors of resistivity with growth condition for high- temperature(HT)-grown and low-temperature(LT)-grown p-GaN films are investigated. It is found that the resistivity of HT-grown p-GaN film is nearly unchanged when the NH3 flow rate or reactor pressure increases. However, it decreases largely for LT-grown p-GaN film. These different variations may be attributed to the fact that carbon impurities are easy to incorporate into p-GaN film when the growth temperature is low. It results in a relatively high carbon concentration in LT-grown p-GaN film compared with HT-grown one. Therefore, carbon concentration is more sensitive to the growth condition in these samples, ultimately, leading to the different variation behaviors of resistivity for HT- and LT-grown ones.