Photoelectrochemical (PEC) etching technique has been proven to be an effective method to etch GaN. Despite its success, investigations on etching-induced damage are still scare. In this work, the damage induced by PEC etching of GaN in KOH electrolyte was studied. Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy was used to explore the origin of etching-induced damaged layer. From the variable temperature PL measurements, the origin of etching-induced damage was attributed to be the defect complex of VGa-ON (gallium vacancy bonds to oxygeon on nitrogen antisite). With determination of the defect origin, the electronic transition in the etch damage-related yellow luminescence (YL) band was suggested to be deep donor-like state to shallow-acceptor transition. In addition, a post-treatment method with boiled KOH chemical etching was developed to remove the thin damaged layer. In this method, crystallographic etching characteristics of boiled KOH was observed to assist in the formation of smooth sidewall facets. As revealed by the reduction of yellow luminescence, we propose this novel technique as a near damage-free etching method.

Thin layers of InGaN were grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition and characterized with atomic force microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. InGaN deposited on GaN exhibits a Stranski-Krastanov growth mode, including 2D wetting layer and 3D self-assembled quantum dots. Besides, we observed that the formed InGaN nano-scale dots have a trapezoidal shape with a {1-102} facet with respect to (0002) surface. Visible spectral range from UV to green was easily obtained by changing InGaN quantum well thickness up to 2.3 nm.

When the stoichiometric TiN was deposited directly on GaN, we obtained columnar TiN grains of 5-20 nm section which cross the whole film thickness and are rotated mostly around the [111] axis. The conventional epitaxial relationship is obtained and no amorphous patches are observed at the interface. The deposition of TiN on Si doped GaN layers lead to the formation of an ohmic contact, whereas we obtain a rectifying contact on p type layers.

A highly chemical reactive ion etching process has been developed for MOVPE-grown GaN on sapphire. The key element for the enhancement of the chemical property during etching is the use of a fluorine containing gas in a chlorine based chemistry. In the perspective of using GaN substrates for homo-epitaxy of high quality GaN/AlGaN structures we have used the above described RIE process to smoothen Ga-polar GaN substrates. The RMS value, measured by AFM, went from 20 Å (after mechanical polishing) down to 4 Å after 6 minutes of RIE. Etching N-polar GaN resulted in a higher etch rate than Ga-polar materials (165 vs. 110 nm/min) but the resulting surface was quite rough and suffers from instability problems. Heat treatment and HCl dip showed a partial recovery of Schottky characteristics after RIE.

A low resistance Ohmic contact to p-type GaN is essential for reliable operation of electronic and optoelectronic devices. Such contacts have been made using Ni/Au and Pd / Au contacts to p-type Mg-doped GaN (1.41×1017 cm−3) grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition ( MOCVD ) on ( 0001 ) sapphire substrates. Thermal evaporation was used for the deposition of those metals followed by annealing at temperatures of 400 ∼ 700 °C in an oxygen and nitrogen mixed gas ambient, then subsequently cooled in liquid nitrogen which reduced the specific contact resistance from the range of 9.46∼2.80×10−2 Ωcm2 to 9.84∼2.65×10−4 Ωcm2 for Ni/Au and from the range of 8.35∼5.01×10−4 Ωcm2 to 3.34∼1.80×10−4 Ωcm2 for Pd/Au. The electrical characteristics for the contacts were examined by the current versus voltage curves and the specific contact resistance was determined by use of the circular transmission line method (c-TLM). The effects of the cryogenic process on improving Ohmic behavior (I-V linearity) and reducing the specific contact resistance will be discussed from a microstructural analysis which reveals the metallurgy of Ohmic contact formation.

A new ohmic contact scheme for gallium nitride is presented. The use of Nitride-forming metal Over Gallide-forming metal, “NOG”, can modify the thermodynamic activity of N and Ga near the interface. This in turn can modify the near-surface point defect concentrations, particularly the vacancies of Ga and N. The principle of this contact scheme was shown to be consistent with results from Ni/Au, Ni/Zn-Au, Ta/Ti, and Ni/Mg/Ni/Si contacts. In the present study, the “NOG” scheme was used to design Ni/Ti/Au and Ni/Al/Au metallization, and addition of Ti and Al nitride-forming metals to the Ni gallide-forming metal led to lower but still high contact resistance. Ti was shown to be better than Al as the nitride-forming metal based on the decrease of resistance in as deposited contacts. Compared to Ni/Au, four times more current was measured in Ni/Ti/Au contacts to p-GaN after anneal at 300°C for 5min. However the addition of the Ti nitride-forming metal led to lower stability at 500°C.

Au/GaN and Cu/GaN Schottky contacts have been studied using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES). Clean and stoechiometric GaN samples were obtained using in situ hydrogen plasma treatment and Ga deposition. The growth of Cu and Au follows Stranski-Krastanov and Frank van der Merwe modes respectively. The interfaces are sharp and non-reactive. Schottky barriers of 1.15eV for Au/GaN and 0.85eV for Cu/GaN were measured using XPS.

The deep level spectra in both p+-n homojunction and n-type Schottky GaN diodes are studied by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) in order to compare the role of the junction configuration on the defects found within the n-GaN layer. Both majority and minority carrier DLTS measurements are performed on the diodes allowing the observation of both electron and hole traps in n-GaN. An electron level at Ec−Et=0.58 and 0.62 V is observed in the p+-n and Schottky diodes, respectively, with a concentration of ∼3−4×1014 cm−3 and a capture cross section of ∼1−5×10−15 cm2. The similar Arrhenius behavior indicates that both emissions are related to the same defect. The shift in activation energy is correlated to the electric field enhanced-emission in the p+-n diode, where the junction barrier is much larger. The p+-n diode configuration allows the observation of a hole trap at Et−Ev=0.87 eV in the n-GaN which is very likely related to the yellow luminescence band.

Deep levels studies on a set of n-GaN films grown by MOCVD and HVPE reveal the presence of electron traps with levels near Ec−0.25 eV, Ec−0.55 eV, Ec−0.8 eV, Ec−1 eV, hole traps with levels near Ev+0.9 eV and a band of relatively shallow states in the lower half of the bandgap. The total density of these latter states was estimated to be some 1016 cm−3 and they were tentatively associated with dislocations in GaN based on their high concentration and band-like character. None of the electron or hole traps could be unambiguously related with strong changes of diffusion lengths of minority carriers in various samples. It is proposed that such changes occur due to different surface recombination velocities. An important role of Ec−0.55 eV traps in persistent photoconductivity phenomena in n-GaN has been demonstrated.

In GaN layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy as well as metal organic vapor phase epitaxy significant differences were found in the appearance of deep defects detected by thermal admittance spectroscopy as compared for deep level transient spectroscopy measurements. While, thermal admittance spectroscopy measurements which were made under zero bias conditions only show thermal emissions at activation energies between 130 and 170 meV, further deep levels existing in these GaN layers were evidenced by transient spectrocopy. This discrepancy is explained by a pinning effect of the Fermi level at the metal / GaN interface induced by high a concentration of the deep levels showing up in thermal admittance spectroscopy. We compare our results with a GaAs:Te Schottky- diode as a refernec sample. Here, both spectroscopic methods give exactly the same deep level emissions.

Deep centers in Si-doped n-GaN samples grown on sapphire by reactive molecular beam epitaxy, using different ammonia flow rates (AFRs), have been studied by deep level transient spectroscopy. In addition to five electron traps, which were also found in n-GaN layers grown by both metalorganic chemical-vapor deposition and hydride vapor-phase epitaxy, two new centers C1 (0.43-0.48 eV) and E1 (0.25 eV) have been observed. C1, whose parameters show strong electric-field effects and anomalous electron capture kinetics, might be associated with dislocations. E1, which is very dependent on the AFR, exhibits an activation energy close to that of a center created by electron irradiation and is believed to be a defect complex involving VN.

We report on the nano-fabrication of GaN/AlGaN device structures using focused ion beam (FIB) etching, illustrated on a GaN/AlGaN heterostructure field effect transistor (HFET). Pillars as small as 20nm to 300nm in diameter were fabricated from the GaN/AlGaN HFET. Micro-photoluminescence and UV micro-Raman maps were recorded from the FIB-etched pattern to assess its material quality. Photoluminescence was detected from 300nm-size GaN/AlGaN HFET pillars, i.e., from the AlGaN as well as the GaN layers in the device structure, despite the induced etch damage. Properties of the GaN and the AlGaN layers in the FIB-etched areas were mapped using UV Micro-Raman spectroscopy. Damage introduced by FIB-etching was assessed. The fabricated nanometer-size GaN/AlGaN structures were found to be of good quality. The results demonstrate the potential of FIB-etching for the nano-fabrication of III-V nitride devices.

Uniaxial wurtzite group-III nitride heterostructures are subject to large polarization effects with significant consequences for device physics in optoelectronic and transport device applications. A central aspect for the proper implementation is the experimental quantification of polarization charges and associated fields. In modulated reflection spectroscopy of thin films and heterostructures of AlGaInN we observe pronounced Franz-Keldysh oscillations that allow direct and accurate readings of the field strength induced by polarization dipoles at the heterointerfaces. In piezoelectric GaInN/GaN quantum wells this dipole is found to induce an asymmetry in barrier heights with a respective splitting of interband transitions. This splitting energy appears to reflect in the transitions of spontaneous and stimulated luminescence in the well. From these experiments the polarization dipole is identified as controllable type-II staggered band offset between adjacent barrier layers which can extend the flexibility in AlGaInN bandstructure design. The derived field values can serve as important input parameters in the further interpretation of the entire system.

The spectroscopic investigation of GaN/AlGaN quantum wells reveals that the emission energy of such structures is determined by four parameters, namely composition, well-width, strain and charge density. The experimental data obtained by varying these parameters are quantitatively explained by an analytic model based on the envelope function formalism which accounts for screening and built-in field, and by a full self-consistent tight-binding model.

The effect of In on the structural and optical properties of InxGa1−xN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) was investigated. These were five-period MQWs grown on sapphire by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Increasing the In composition caused broadening of the high-resolution x-ray diffraction superlattice satellite peak and the photoluminescence-excitation bandedge. This indicates that the higher In content degrades the interface quality because of nonuniform In incorporation into the GaN layer. However, the samples with higher In compositions have lower room temperature (RT) stimulated (SE) threshold densities and lower nonradiative recombination rates. The lower RT SE threshold densities of the higher In samples show that the suppression of nonradiative recombination by In overcomes the drawback of greater interface imperfection.

Photoluminescence (PL) spectra were measured at room temperature for GaN quantum wells (QWs) with Al0.8Ga0.2N barriers, which were grown by atmospheric-pressure metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The thickness of the GaN QW layers was systematically varied from one monolayer to four monolayers. We clearly observed a PL peak at a wavelength as short as 247 nm (5.03 eV) from one monolayer-thick QWs. The effective confinement energy is as large as 1.63 eV.

We report on experiments which unequivocal identify the chemical nature of optical transitions related to As (2.58 eV), Ge (3.398 eV) and Se (1.49 eV) found in the photoluminescence (PL) spectra of GaN. For this purpose epitaxial GaN layers were doped by ion implantation (60 keV, 3×1012 cm−2) with the radioactive isotopes 71As and 72Se. The isotope 71As (half-life 64.28 h) decays first into 71Ge (11.43 d), which finally transmutes into stable 71Ga. The isotope 72Se decays via 72As (26 h) into stable 72Ge. These chemical transmutations were monitored with photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). The half-lives resulting from exponential fits on our PL data are in excellent agreement with the half-lives of the isotopes. Our experiments clearly show that in each case the luminescence center involves exactly one As, Ge or Se atom. In addition to this, the results imply that no optically active GaN antisite exists.