Mg-doping and free-hole properties of hot-wall MOCVD GaN

The hot-wall metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), previously shown to enable superior III-nitride material quality and high performance devices, has been explored for Mg doping of GaN. We have investigated the Mg incorporation in a wide doping range (2.45×1018 cm−3 up to 1.10×1020 cm−3) and demonstrate GaN:Mg with low background impurity concentrations under optimized growth conditions. Dopant and impurity levels are discussed in view of Ga supersaturation, which provides a unified concept to explain the complexity of growth conditions impact on Mg acceptor incorporation and compensation. The results are analyzed in relation to the extended defects, revealed by scanning transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, and surface morphology, and in correlation with the electrical properties obtained by Hall effect and capacitance–voltage (C–V) measurements. This allows to establish a comprehensive picture of GaN:Mg growth by hot-wall MOCVD providing guidance for growth parameters optimization depending on the targeted application. We show that substantially lower H concentration as compared to Mg acceptors can be achieved in GaN:Mg without any in situ or post-growth annealing resulting in p-type conductivity in as-grown material. State-of-the-art p-GaN layers with a low resistivity and a high free-hole density (0.77 Ω cm and 8.4×1017 cm−3, respectively) are obtained after post-growth annealing demonstrating the viability of hot-wall MOCVD for growth of power electronic device structures.