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The effect of carbon impurities on lightly doped MOCVD GaN Schottky diodes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2011

Randy P. Tompkins ,
Timothy A. Walsh ,
Michael A. Derenge ,
Kevin W. Kirchner ,
Shuai Zhou ,
Cuong B. Nguyen ,
Kenneth A. Jones ,
Puneet Suvarna ,
Mihir Tungare  and
Neeraj Tripathi
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Randy P. Tompkins*
Affiliation:
Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Maryland 20783
Timothy A. Walsh
Affiliation:
Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Maryland 20783
Michael A. Derenge
Affiliation:
Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Maryland 20783
Kevin W. Kirchner
Affiliation:
Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Maryland 20783
Shuai Zhou
Affiliation:
Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Maryland 20783
Cuong B. Nguyen
Affiliation:
Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Maryland 20783
Kenneth A. Jones
Affiliation:
Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Maryland 20783
Puneet Suvarna
Affiliation:
College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12203
Mihir Tungare
Affiliation:
College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12203
Neeraj Tripathi
Affiliation:
College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12203
Fatemeh (Shadi) Shahedipour-Sandvik
Affiliation:
College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12203
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: randy.tompkins.ctr@mail.mil
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Abstract

Schottky diodes have been fabricated on metalorganic chemical vapor deposition GaN epitaxial layers grown on sapphire substrates. Carbon impurities limit the ability of these films to be used in high-power devices. Although its effect can be mitigated by growing the films at higher pressure, higher flow rates, and larger V/III ratios, it still effectively limits the net carrier concentration to ∼1016 cm−3 and therefore the breakdown voltage to ∼1200 V by acting as a compensating deep acceptor for n-type material. The net carrier concentration is smaller than the carbon concentration indicating that not all of the carbon occupies a nitrogen site acting as a deep acceptor. It is not known whether some of the carbon occupies gallium sites acting as a donor, interstitial sites creating states in the midgap region, and/or is tied up in the large number of dislocations in the films where it is not electrically active.

Keywords

III-VCarbonSecondary ion mass spectroscopy
Type
Invited Feature Papers
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 26 , Issue 23 , 14 December 2011 , pp. 2895 - 2900
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2011

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References

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