Gallium nitride based ultraviolet (UV) and blue AlGaN/GaN/AlGaN double heterojunction structure light emitting diodes (LEDs) were electrically characterized using current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements as a function of frequency. An analysis of logarithmic plots of the forward I-V characteristics indicated that current in these diodes was proportional to Vx, as opposed to eqV/nkT, where x was observed to be either 1 or 2 at low biases increasing to as high as 40 at higher biases. The dependence of diode forward current on Vx is likely to be due to space charge limited current in the presence of a high concentration of deep level states in the bandgap. The concentration of deep states and their position in the band gap were extracted from these logarithmic plots. For both the blue and the UV LEDs, several closely spaced levels were obtained, located most likely in the range between EV and EV + 0.5 eV with concentrations of the order of 1016/cm3 to 1017/cm3. Capacitance-voltage measurements as a function of frequency (200 Hz - 1 MHz) at room temperature yielded a density of approximately 1 × 1015 cm−3 located at 0.46 eV above the valence band-edge for both the UV and blue LED. Even though the location of these deep states from the I-V and C-V measurements are within the same range, the two orders magnitude difference in the concentration of deep states is not well understood at this point.

This paper reports on the study of defects in p-type layers in III-nitride laser structures grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Characterization of the heterostructures was carried out using atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The results show that a high density of extended defects – possibly inversion domains – exist in the p-type cladding layers of as-grown structures with either AlGaN/GaN superlattices or bulk AlGaN cladding layers. TEM analysis of operated and aged devices does not reveal any significant structural modification of the p-type material which might be the cause of deterioration in the lasing performance or failure.

The dependence of traps and their concentration in GaN on the quality of templates, on which the layers are grown, has been studied by deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS). Thin GaN layers studied were grown on GaN templates employing conventional epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) and nano-ELO with SiNx nanonetwork. The concentrations of traps found in these layers were compared with a reference sample grown on a standard GaN template not utilizing ELO. Two traps A (0.55 eV – 0.58 eV) and B (0.20 eV – 0.23 eV) were detected in the temperature range from 80 K to 400 K. A reduction of traps in layers grown on the ELO and nano-ELO templates was noted. We attribute this reduction to the reduction of threading dislocation density and as a result reduced capture of point defects and complexes as part of dislocation core structure and/or reduced formation of defects and complexes in the vicinity of line defects where the formation can be energetically favorable.

We report on the persistent photoconductivity (PPC) effect in AlxGa1−xN/AlN/GaN heterostructures with two different Al compositions (x=0.15 and 0.25). The two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) was characterized by Shubnikov-de Haas and Hall measurements. At cryogenic temperatures under optical illumination, the 2DEG carrier density and mobility was enhanced. The persistent photocurrent in both samples exhibited a strong dependence on illumination wavelength.

Semi-polar (1122) GaN films were grown on (1100) m-plane sapphire substrates. Growth demonstrated surface striations aligned perpendicular to the in-plane GaN m-axis. SiNx interlayers were incorporated into the as-grown films with the purpose of decreasing the density of defects in the material. Inclusion of interlayers increased the characteristic length of surface striations and feature size. X-ray rocking curves widths are shown to be correlated to specific threading dislocation geometry. Skew-symmetric omega scan peak broadening suggests a decrease in the proportion of screw-type dislocations to edge-type dislocations with increasing number of interlayers.

Aluminum nitride (AlN) boules larger than 2 inches in diameter were grown by the sublimation-recondensation technique. X-ray Laue diffraction was used to characterize the crystallinity and orientation of the boules, and 2” dia. substrates were sliced with typical thickness of ∼500 μm. The wafers were then polished in order to meet the common standards for wafer thickness and flatness. The Al-terminated surface was finished with a proprietary chemical-mechanical process and showed RMS roughness of 0.5 nm or less as measured by atomic force microscopy (5×5 μm area). Currently, the substrates have some polycrystalline regions that are highly textured but about 85% of the total area is monocrystalline. The dislocation density in the crystalline regions of the substrate was measured by preferential chemical etching and then determining the resulting etch pit density (EPD). The etching technique involves potassium hydroxide and has been qualified through correlation with x-ray topography measurements of the dislocations. Measured EPD varied from 250 cm−2 to 3×104 cm−2. Other structural defects such as low angle grain boundaries, prismatic slip bands, inversion domains, have also been observed. The rare appearance of these defects will be discussed even though their role in the epitaxial growth of GaN and AlGaN is yet to be clarified.

Optical properties of GaN templates grown by the Epitaxial Lateral Overgrowth (ELO) technique along the nonpolar (1120) and the semipolar (1122) directions on R- and M-sapphire were investigated. Spatially resolved Cathodoluminescence (CL) was carried out in order to identify defect related transitions, to resolve their localization and to study the efficiency of ELO concerning defect filtration. The wing region of semipolar GaN is shown to be almost defect free with a luminescence spectrum dominated by the GaN emission at 3,472 eV. It is shown that the defect related emissions are localized in the seed, but different defects occur as well in the wing, especially in A-plane (nonpolar) GaN.

The Er that is rare earth element causes luminescence at 1540 nm, which is a low loss transmission window in silica-based fibers used in optical communications. Moreover, it is known that the temperature quenching of the luminescence of Er becomes smaller with the wide band gap of the host material. We report on the photoluminescence (PL) characteristic and X-ray diffraction (XRD) of AlN:Er thin films which are deposited by RF reactive magnetron co-sputtering method. All the thin films were deposited by RF reactive magnetron co-sputtering method from a 99.999 % Al target and 99.99 % Er chips in a nitrogen gas (99.9998 %) atmosphere. The thin films were achieved with a discharge power of 250 W in a total pressure of 5.0∼10-3 Torr, and the deposition times were one hour. After the deposited, these samples were annealed for 30 minutes in the temperature range from 400 to 900° in a nitrogen gas (99.999 %) atmosphere with an infrared lamp heater. PL spectra of AlN:Er were measured using the 325 nm line of a He-Cd laser at 15 K. Consequently, we observed PL spectra around 1500 nm. The strong luminescence of peak wavelength at 1538 nm is based on the intra-4f emitting centers of Er. We report systematically the experimental results of PL and XRD.

The sheet resistance and sheet carrier concentration for Si ion implanted GaN have been investigated as a function of Si ion dosages and ion's energy using van der Pauw method and Hall effect measurement. Si ion implanted GaN is annealed at 1200 °C for 10 sec in N2 gas flow with 50 nm-thick SiNx cap layer to avoid dissociation of GaN. For Si ion energy of 30 keV, the sheet resistance is decreased from 103 to 56 ohm/sq. for the dose ranging from 1 × 1014 to 2 × 1015/cm2. For the Si dose larger than 2 × 1015/cm2, the sheet carrier concentration is saturated around 1 ×s 1015/cm2. Si ion implanted GaN with energy of 50, 80, and 120 keV at a dose of 2 × 1015/cm2 also reveal the sheet carrier concentration of about 1 × 1015/cm2 with the decrease of electron mobility. It is suggested that the implanted Si donors are strongly compensated by the residual implantation-induced defects.

Usually, the fabrication of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) requires unstrained or tensile strained active layers on a selectively removable sacrificial layer. Compressive strain would lead to instabilities due to buckling effects. For group III-nitride based MEMS, AlN is a promising material for sacrificial layers since it can be epitaxially overgrown and etched selectively to GaN. However, due to the larger lattice constants GaN is growing compressively strained on AlN. Nanoheteroepitaxy opens a way to yield unstrained, high quality epitaxial GaN layers on nanocrystalline AlN thin film by means of a 3D strain relaxation mechanism. For this purpose sputtered nanocrystalline AlN films were overgrown with single crystalline GaN and AlGaN/GaN layers by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. The high quality of the layers is proven by an atomically flat surface and a 2D electron gas at the interface of the AlGaN/GaN heterostructure.

We have investigated the growth properties of Mg-doped N-polar InN films grown by radio-frequency plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (RF-MBE). We found that the Mg-doped InN films had smaller grain size than non-doped films, and furthermore the grain size decreased with an increase in Mg doping amount. Non-doped InN exhibited a single X-ray diffraction (XRD) peak of (0002) h-InN. On the other hand, the Mg-doped InN produced a weak XRD peak of (111) c-InN in addition to a strong peak of (0002) h-InN. These results indicate that the Mg doping decreased the surface migration length of In atoms. From Hall-effect measurements, all the samples were shown to have n-type conductivity. Mg-doped InN grown with Mg cell temperatures of 130 and 135°C had carrier concentrations that were about half (i.e., ∼4.5×1018 cm−3) that of the non-doped InN. However, the carrier concentration tended to increase with further supply of Mg. These results indicate that Mg-doping causes a trade-off between a carrier decreasing effect from the Mg acceptors and a carrier increasing effect from defects caused by the poor surface migration of In atoms.

Interaction between basal plane dislocations and single or well-spaced threading dislocations is discussed based on synchrotron white beam X-ray topographic studies carried out on physical vapor transport grown hexagonal silicon carbide single crystals. The basal plane dislocations are able to cut through single or well-spaced threading edge dislocations even if the formation of kinks/jogs is energetically unfavorable while threading screw dislocations were mostly observed to act as effective pinning points. However, basal plane dislocations can sometimes cut through a threading screw dislocation, forming a superjog and which subsequently migrates on the prismatic plane via a cross-slip process. Threading edge dislocation walls act as obstacles for the glide of basal plane dislocations and the mechanism by which this occurs is discussed. The character of low angle grain boundaries and their dislocation content are discussed.

High electron mobility transistor (NEMT) based on AlN/GaN can be the source to generate terahertz (THz) radiation. The basic requirements are that a) the electron density in the 2DEG should be large enough for ensuring that the electron-electron scattering mean-free path is much shorter than the distance between the contacts to ensure a viscous, fluid-like flow, and b) the mobility should be high enough such that the possible plasma modes are not strongly damped. To show AlN/GaN HEMT is a qualified candidate for THz generation, we have calculated the plasma frequency for the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the GaN channel and compared it with other material, such as Si, GaAs and InAs. 3nm AlN has been grown on the GaN substrate by Nitrogen-source radio-frequency molecular-beam expitaxy (RFMBE). The growth temperature has been optimized and found to be 730C. Results from Hall measurement show the electron charge is ∼2.5*1013 cm−2 with the mobility of 530 cm2/Vs (room temperature) and 860 cm2/Vs (77K). A series AlN samples have been grown and studied by AFM, which shows the critical thickness of AlN on GaN is between 4nm and 5nm.

The incorporation of transition metals in GaN has long been of interest in spintronics due to theoretical predictions of room temperature ferromagnetism in these materials. However, the mechanism of the observed ferromagnetism of the nitride-based DMS is still controversial, and may originate from a carrier-mediated, defect-related or nanoscale clustering mechanism. In this work, we present a comparative study of the incorporation of various transition metals and their effect on the optical, structural, and magnetic properties of GaN. Metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) has been employed to produce epitaxial films of varying thickness and manganese and iron doping using bis-cyclopentyldienyl(magnanese,iron) as the transition metal sources. High-resolution X-ray diffraction reveals no secondary phases under optimized growth conditions. Magnetic hysteresis is observed at room temperature in both GaMnN and GaFeN, though the strength of the magnetic ordering is roughly an order of magnitude weaker in the Fe-alloyed samples. Increasing Mn concentrations significantly affect long-range lattice ordering, and the observation of local vibrational modes (LVMs) supports the formation of nitrogen vacancies, even under optimized MOCVD growth conditions. Such vacancies form shallow donor complexes and thus contribute to self-compensation. A disorder-induced mode at 300 cm−1 and a LVM due to vacancies at 669 cm-1 were revealed by Raman spectroscopy.

In this paper, we report the development of blue-green-red LEDs based on InGaN quantum dots (QDs) and quantum wells in the active region, and GaN QDs in the nucleation layer for dislocation filtering, by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy. Self-assembled InGaN QDs and GaN QDs were grown in the Stranski-Krastanov mode. For the GaN QDs grown at 770 °C, the height distribution of the dots shows a bimodal distribution, which can be attributed to the interaction of the GaN QDs with the threading dislocations. TEM and XRD studies indicate that GaN QDs in the nucleation region help threading dislocations to deviate and annihilate. The average dot height, diameter and density of the InGaN QDs were estimated to be 3 nm, 30 nm and 7×1010 cm−2, respectively. The cathodoluminescence emission peak of the InGaN/GaN multiple layer quantum dots (MQDs) was found to red shift 330 meV with respect to the emission peak of the uncapped single layer of InGaN QDs due to Quantum Confined Stark effect. Blue LEDs based on InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) as well as green and red LEDs based on InGaN MQDs emitting at 440 nm, 560 nm and 640 nm with FWHM of 30 nm, 87 nm and 97 nm, respectively, were grown and fabricated. The electroluminescence peak positions of both the green and red InGaN MQD LEDs are shown to be more blue-shifted with increasing injection current than that of the blue InGaN/GaN MQW LEDs.

Non-polar surfaces of HVPE grown GaN were characterized by cathodoluminescence (CL), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). Both of a- and m-plane GaN were prepared by growing thick GaN along the c-axis, and cutting in transverse orientations. The exposed non-polar surfaces were prepared by mechanical polishing (MP) and chemically mechanical polishing (CMP). Non-uniform luminescent characteristics on a- and m-plane GaN were observed in CL images, indicating a higher concentration of impurities in the area of more luminescence. CL spectra from the bulk samples revealed two peaks: 364 nm and 510 nm, related to band edge and impurity defects respectively. The detection by SIMS confirmed that oxygen was inhomogeneously incorporated during the growth of thick GaN layers. Surface qualities of a- and m-plane GaN were also investigated. The lower optical intensities from a-plane GaN at low acceleration voltages indicated more surface damages were introduced during polish. The optical intensity difference from the two samples was reduced at higher acceleration voltages. Similar CL intensities at low acceleration voltages from a- and m-plane GaN substrates prepared by CMP indicated improved surface qualities.

GaN based pH-sensors were used to measure the reaction and the kinetics of a lipase assay producing caprylic acid. Sensor structures consist of an AlGaN/GaN-heterostructure grown by plasma-induced molecular beam epitaxy with a thin GaN cap layer. The carrier concentration of the two-dimensional electron gas is manipulated by changing the surface potential due to changes in pH value.

Indium nitride (InN) and indium-rich group III-nitride alloys are promising materials for advanced optoelectronic device applications. Indium-rich alloys, e.g. (Ga1-y-xAlyInx)N will enable the fabrication of high-efficient light emitting diodes tunable in the whole visible spectral region, as well as advanced high speed optoelectronics for optical communication operating. The present limitation in this area is the growth of high quality InN and indium-rich group III-nitride alloys as documented in many controversial reports on the true physical properties of InN. The difficulties arise from the low dissociation temperature of InN that requires an extraordinarily high nitrogen overpressure to stabilize the material up to optimum growth temperatures. We developed a novel “high-pressure chemical vapor deposition” (HPCVD) system, capable to control and analyze the vast different partial pressures of the constituents. Our results show that the chosen HPCVD pathway leads to high-quality single crystalline InN, demonstrating that HPCVD is a viable tool for the growth of indium rich group III nitride alloys. The structural analysis of InN deposited on GaN-sapphire substrate by XRD show single phase InN(0002) peaks with full width half maximum (FWHM) around 400 arcsec. Infrared reflectance spectroscopy is used to analyze the plasmon frequencies, high frequency dielectric constants, the free carrier concentrations and carrier mobilities in these layers. For nominal undoped InN layers, free carrier concentrations in the mid 1019 cm−3 and mobilities around 600 cm−2-V-1-s-1 are observed. Further improvements are expected as the growth parameters are optimized. The explored growth parameters are close to of those employed for GaN growth conditions, which is a major step towards the fabrication of indium rich (Ga1−y−xAlyInx)N alloys and heterostructures.

Bulk GaN sliced in bars along (11-20) and (1-100) planes from a boule grown in the [0001] direction by HVPE was confirmed as strain free material with a low dislocation density by using several characterization techniques. The high-structural quality of the material allows photoluminescence studies of free excitons, principal donor bound excitons and their two-electron satellites with regard to the optical selection rules. Raman scattering study of the bulk GaN with nonpolar orientations allows a direct access to the active phonon modes and a direct determination of their strain-free positions.

Au-gated AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) structures were functionalized in the gate region with label free 3′-thiol modified oligonucleotides. This serves as a binding layer to the AlGaN surface for hybridization of matched target Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) shows that immobilization of thiol modified DNA covalently bonded with gold on the gated region. Hybridization between probe DNA and matched or mismatched target DNA on the Au-gated HEMT was detected by electrical measurements. The HEMT drain-source current showed a clear decrease of 115 μA as this matched target DNA was introduced to the probe DNA on the surface, showing the promise of the DNA sequence detection approach for biological sensing.