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Mg-doped, graded AlGaN films showed the formation of an impurity band and high, temperature-invariant p-conductivity even for doping levels well below the Mott transition. However, compensating point defects disrupted the impurity band, resulting in an Anderson transition from the impurity band to valence band conduction and a more than tenfold reduction in room-temperature conductivity. This is the first demonstration of Anderson-like localization in AlGaN films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High p-conductivity (0.7 Ω−1 cm−1) was achieved in high-Al content AlGaN via Mg doping and compositional grading. A clear transition between the valence band and impurity band conduction mechanisms was observed. The transition temperature depended strongly on the compositional gradient and to some degree on the Mg doping level. A model is proposed to explain the role of the polarization field in enhancing the conductivity in Mg-doped graded AlGaN films and the transition between the two conduction types. This study offers a viable path to technologically useful p-conductivity in AlGaN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Record-low p-type resistivities of 9.7 and 37 Ω cm were achieved in Al0.7Ga0.3N and Al0.8Ga0.2N films, respectively, grown on single-crystal AlN substrate by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. A two-band conduction model was introduced to explain the anomalous thermal behavior of resistivity and the Hall coefficient. Relatively heavy Mg doping (5 × 1019 cm−3), in conjunction with compensation control, enabled the formation of an impurity band exhibiting a shallow activation energy of ∼30 meV for a wide temperature range. Valence band conduction associated with a large Mg ionization energy was dominant above 500 K. The apparently anomalous results deviating from the classical semiconductor physics were attributed to fundamentally different Hall scattering factors for impurity and valence band conduction. This work demonstrates the utility of impurity band conduction to achieve technologically relevant p-type conductivity in Al-rich AlGaN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A two-band transport model is proposed to explain electrical conduction in graded aluminum gallium nitride layers, where the free hole conduction in the valence band is favored at high temperatures and hopping conduction in the impurity band dominates at low temperatures. The model simultaneously explains the significantly lowered activation energy for p-type conduction (∼10 meV), a nearly constant sheet conductivity at lower temperatures (200–330 K), and the anomalous reversal of the Hall coefficient caused by the negative sign of the Hall scattering factor in the hopping conduction process. A comparison between the uniform and graded samples suggests that compositional grading significantly enhances the probability of phonon-assisted hopping transitions between the Mg atoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]