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This study developed an Ohmic contact formation method for a ZnO:Al (AZO) transparent conductive layer on p-GaN films involving the introduction of an indium oxynitride (InON) nanodot interlayer. An antisurfactant pretreatment was used to grow InON nanodots on p-GaN films in a RF magnetron sputtering system. A low specific contact resistance of 1.12? ×?10-4 Ω cm2 was achieved for a sample annealed at 500?°C for 30?s in nitrogen ambient and embedded with an InON nanodot interlayer with a nanodot density of 6.5?×?108?cm-2. By contrast, a sample annealed in oxygen ambient exhibited non-Ohmic behavior. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy results showed that the oxygen vacancy (Vo) in the InON nanodots played a crucial role in carrier transport. The fitting I-V characteristic curves indicated that the hopping mechanism with an activation energy of 31.6?meV and trap site spacing of 1.1?nm dominated the carrier transport in the AZO/InON nanodot/p-GaN sample. Because of the high density of donor-like oxygen vacancy defects at the InON nanodot/p-GaN interface, positive charges from the underlying p-GaN films were absorbed at the interface. This led to positive charge accumulation, creating a narrow depletion layer; therefore, carriers from the AZO layer passed through InON nanodots by hopping transport, and subsequently tunneling through the interface to enter the p-GaN films. Thus, AZO Ohmic contact can be formed on p-GaN films by embedding an InON nanodot interlayer to facilitate trap-assisted tunneling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the electrical properties of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films directly grown on two types of p-type GaN thin films. The low-pressure p-GaN thin films (LP-p-GaN) exhibited structural properties of high-density edge-type threading dislocations (TDs) and compensated defects (i.e., nitrogen vacancy). Compared with high-pressure p-GaN thin films (HP-p-GaN), X-ray photoemission spectroscopy of Ga 3d core levels indicated that the surface Fermi-level shifted toward the higher binding-energy side by approximately 0.7 eV. The high-density edge-type TDs and compensated defects enabled surface Fermi-level shifting above the intrinsic Fermi-level, causing the surface of LP-p-GaN thin films to invert to n-type semiconductor. A highly nonlinear increase in leakage current regarding reverse-bias voltage was observed for AZO/LP-p-GaN. The theoretical fits for the reverse-bias voltage region indicated that the field-assisted thermal ionization of carriers from defect associated traps, which is known as the Poole-Frenkel effect, dominated the I-V behavior of AZO/LP-p-GaN. The fitting result estimated the trap energy level at 0.62 eV below the conduction band edge. In addition, the optical band gap increased from 3.50 eV for as-deposited AZO films to 3.62 eV for 300 °C annealed AZO films because of the increased carrier concentration. The increasing Fermi-level of the 300 °C annealed AZO films enabled the carrier transport to move across the interface into the LP-p-GaN thin films without any thermal activated energy. Thus, the Ohmic behavior of AZO contact can be achieved directly on the low-pressure p-GaN films at room temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An indium oxynitride (InON) quantum dot (QD) layer was inserted between the indium nitride (InN) and p-type gallium nitride (GaN) films for improving the conversion efficiency of the heterostructure solar cells. The InN/InON QD/p-GaN heterostructure solar cells exhibited a high open-circuit voltage of 2.29 V, short-circuit current density of 1.64 mA/cm2, and conversion efficiency of 1.12% under AM 1.5G illumination. Compared with samples without InON QDs, the power conversion efficiency of sample with InON QDs increased twofold; this increase was attributed to the increase in short-current density. The external quantum efficiency of 250-nm-thick InN/p-GaN heterostructure solar cells has a highest value of 6.5% in the wavelength range of 700-1100 nm. The photogenerated holes separated in the depletion region of InN thin films is difficult to transport across the energy barrier between the InN and p-GaN layers. The oxygen vacancy assisted carrier transport in the InN/InON QD/p-GaN sample, which was evidenced in its current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics. The dark I-V characteristic curves in the bias range of -2 to 2V exhibited ohmic behavior, which indicated the absence of a transport barrier between the InN and p-GaN layers. In addition, a shoulder peak at -0.08V was observed in the high-frequency (60-100 kHz) C-V characteristic curves corresponding to carrier capture and emission in the shallow defect state of oxygen vacancy in the InON QDs. The oxygen vacancy exists inside the InON QDs and generates the interface states in the InON QD/p-GaN interface to form a carrier transport path. Thus, more photogenerated holes can transport via the InON QDs into the p-GaN layer, contributing to the photocurrent and resulting in high conversion efficiency for the InN/InON QD/p-GaN heterostructure solar cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report Raman measurements on InN islands grown on GaN by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. The Raman frequency of the InN E2 mode is found to decrease exponentially with the island’s aspect ratio, indicating a size dependent strain relaxation during the island formation. Our results suggest that most of the strain at the InN–GaN interface have been released plastically during the initial stage of island formations. After that, the residual strain of only -3.5×10-3 is further relaxed elastically via surface islanding. The experimental data are in agreement with the strain relaxation predicted from a simplified model analysis as well as three-dimensional finite-element simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]