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Annealing Mg-implanted homoepitaxial GaN at temperatures above 1400 °C eliminates the formation of inversion domains and leads to improved dopant activation efficiency. Extended defects, in the form of inversion domains, contain electrically inactive Mg after post-implantation annealing at temperatures as high as 1300 °C (one GPa N2 overpressure), which results in a low dopant activation efficiency. Triple-axis x-ray data reveal that implant-induced strain is fully relieved after annealing at 1300 °C for 10 min, indicating that strain-inducing point defects formed during implantation have reconfigured and inversion domains are formed. However, annealing at temperatures of 1400–1500 °C (one GPa N2 overpressure) eliminates the presence of the inversion domains. While residual defects, such as dislocation loops, still exist after annealing at and above 1400 °C, chemical analysis at multiple dislocation loops shows no sign of Mg segregation. Meanwhile, an overall decreasing trend in the dislocation loop density is observed after annealing at the higher temperatures and longer times. Additionally, once inversion domains are formed and the samples are cooled to room temperature, they are shown to dissolve with subsequent annealing above 1400 °C. While such defects have been observed before, the important finding that such defects can be dissolved with a short, higher temperature step is key. Earlier work [Breckenridge et al., J. Appl. Phys. Lett. 118, 022101 (2021)] addressing electrical measurements of these types of samples showed that annealing at 1400 °C leads to a dopant activation efficiency that is an order of magnitude higher than that observed at 1300 °C. This work complements earlier work by identifying the inversion domains, which incorporate Mg, and points to the benefits, in terms of defect density and p-type dopant activation, of using higher temperature (>1400 °C) annealing cycles to activate Mg in GaN, even if the Mg-containing inversion domains had been formed during lower temperature annealing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A defect quasi Fermi level (dQFL) control process based on above bandgap illumination was applied to control H and VN-complexes, which are the main contributors to the passivation and self-compensation, respectively, in Mg:GaN grown via metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Secondary ion mass spectrometry measurements confirmed that the total Mg incorporation was unaffected by the process. However, the total H concentration was reduced to similar levels obtained by post-growth thermal activation prior to any annealing treatment. Similarly, the 2.8 eV emission in the photoluminescence spectra, attributed to compensating VN and its complexes, was reduced for the dQFL-process samples. After thermal activation and Ni/Au contact deposition, Hall effect measurements revealed lower resistivities (increased mobilities and free hole concentrations) for dQFL-grown samples with Mg doping concentrations above and below 2 × 1019 cm−3. All these results demonstrate that the dQFL process can effectively reduce the H-passivation and self-compensation of the Mg:GaN films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A theoretical framework for a general approach to reduce point defect density in materials via control of defect quasi Fermi level (dQFL) is presented. The control of dQFL is achieved via excess minority carrier generation. General guidelines for controlling dQFL that lead to a significant reduction in compensating point defects in any doped material is proposed. The framework introduces and incorporates the effects of various factors that control the efficacy of the defect reduction process such as defect level, defect formation energy, bandgap, and excess minority carrier density. Modified formation energy diagrams are proposed, which illustrate the effect of the quasi Fermi level control on the defect formation energies. These formation energy diagrams provide powerful tools to determine the feasibility and requirements to produce the desired reduction in specified point defects. An experimental study of the effect of excess minority carriers on point defect incorporation in GaN and AlGaN shows an excellent quantitative agreement with the theoretical predictions. Illumination at energies larger than the bandgap is employed as a means to generate excess minority carriers. The case studies with CN in Si doped GaN, H and VN in Mg doped GaN and VM-2ON in Si doped Al0.65Ga0.35N revealed a significant reduction in impurities in agreement with the proposed theory. Since compensating point defects control the material performance (this is particularly challenging in wide and ultra wide bandgap materials), dQFL control is a highly promising technique with wide scope and may be utilized to improve the properties of various materials systems and performance of devices based upon them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UV-C distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) for vertical cavity surface emitting laser applications and polariton lasers are presented. The structural integrity of up to 25 layer pairs of AlN/Al0.65Ga0.35N DBRs is maintained by balancing the tensile and compressive strain present between the single layers of the multilayer stack grown on top of an Al0.85Ga0.35N template. By comparing the structural and optical properties for DBRs grown on low dislocation density AlN and AlGaN templates, the criteria for plastic relaxation by cracking thick nitride Bragg reflectors are deduced. The critical thickness is found to be limited mainly by the accumulated strain energy during the DBR growth and is only negligibly affected by the dislocations. A reflectance of 97.7% at 273 nm is demonstrated. The demonstrated optical quality and an ability to tune the resonance wavelength of our resonators and microcavity structures open new opportunities for UV-C vertical emitters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-resolution X-ray diffraction method with enhanced surface sensitivity has been used to investigate the effects of various polishing steps on the near-surface region of single crystal substrates. The method involves the study of a highly asymmetric reflection, observable under grazing incidence conditions. Analysis of rocking curve measurements and reciprocal space maps (RSMs) revealed subtle structural differences between the polished substrates. For aluminum nitride wafers, damage induced from diamond sawing and mechanical polishing was readily identifiable by on-axis rocking curves, but this method was unable to distinguish between sample surfaces subjected to various degrees of chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). To characterize sufficiently these surfaces, (10.3) RSMs were measured to provide both qualitative and quantitative information about the near-surface region. Two features present in the RSMs were utilized to quantitatively assess the polished wafers: the magnitude of the diffuse scatter in the omega-scans and the elongation of the crystal truncation rod. The method is able to distinguish between different degrees of CMP surface preparation and provides metrics to quantify subsurface damage after this polishing step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical surface treatments were conducted on mechanically polished (MP) and chemomechanically polished (CMP) (0001)-oriented single crystalline aluminum nitride (AlN) substrates to determine a surface preparation procedure for the homoepitaxial deposition of AlN epitaxial layers by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. MP AlN substrates characterized by atomic force microscopy exhibited 0.5 nm rms roughness and polishing scratches, while CMP AlN substrates exhibited 0.1 nm rms roughness and were scratch-free. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis of MP and CMP AlN substrates indicated the presence of a surface hydroxide layer composed of mixed aluminum oxide hydroxide and aluminum trihydroxide. Wet etching with sulfuric and phosphoric acid mixtures reduced the amount of surface hydroxide. Ammonia annealing at 1250 °C converted the substrate hydroxide layer to AlN and increased the rms roughness of MP and CMP AlN substrates to 2.2 nm and 0.2 nm, respectively. AlN epitaxial layers were deposited at 1100–1250 °C under 20 Torr total pressure with a V/III ratio of 180–300 in either N2 or H2 diluent. High-resolution x-ray diffraction measurements revealed that AlN epitaxial layers deposited on MP substrates were strained due to nucleation and coalescence of AlN grains on the mechanically damaged surfaces. AlN deposited on CMP substrates was epitaxial and strain-free. Thermodynamic models for nitridation and AlN deposition were also proposed and evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A controllable and smooth potassium hydroxide-based wet etching technique was developed for the AlGaN system. High selectivity between AlN and AlxGa1-xN (up to 12×) was found to be critical in achieving effective substrate thinning or removal for AlGaN-based deep ultraviolet light emitting diodes, thus increasing light extraction efficiency. The mechanism of high selectivity of AlGaN as a function of Al composition can be explained as related to the formation and dissolution of oxide/hydroxide on top of N-polar surface. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopic analysis served as ultimate proof that these hillocks were not related to underlying threading dislocations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]