Oxygen and hydrogen profiles and electrical properties of unintentionally doped gallium nitride grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy

Commercially available hydride vapor phase epitaxy gallium nitride (GaN) is characterized with the aim to correlate the oxygen and hydrogen secondary ion mass spectrometry profiles of a GaN wafer with the electrical properties of the sample. A GaN layer model, including doping profile and mobility, is derived, utilizing electrical (capacitance–voltage, Hall), structural (high resolution X-ray diffraction) and optical (polarized infrared spectroscopy) methods. Oxygen and hydrogen are easily incorporated during hydride vapor phase epitaxy growth of GaN. Oxygen is an n-type dopant in GaN, whereas hydrogen may passivate some of the donors. Electrical and optical properties correlate with a low defect concentration top GaN layer and a high defect concentration GaN interlayer.