Electrical properties of BeMgZnO/ZnO heterostructures with high-density two-dimensional electron gas

Accumulation of non-equilibrium hot longitudinal optical (LO) phonons limits the electron drift velocity for electronic devices operating under high electric field. Ultrafast decay of hot phonons can take place via plasmon-LO phonon resonance, which leads to fast electron energy relaxation and hence high electron drift velocity and optimum operation of the devices. This need motivates us to create heterostructures with 2DEG density close to the plasmon-LO phonon resonance region. Through incorporating a few percent of Be into the BeMgZnO barrier to switch the strain sign in the barrier from compressive to tensile, we have achieved 2DEG densities over a wide range in Zn-polar BeMgZnO/ZnO heterostructures with moderate Mg content (below 30%) grown by molecular beam epitaxy. We have obtained electron mobility of 250 cm2/Vs at room temperature (293 K) and 1800 cm2/Vs at 13 K in Be0.02Mg0.26ZnO/ZnO heterostructures. Via capacitance-voltage (CV) spectroscopy, we have explored the depth profiles of the apparent carrier density of samples grown under different conditions. The correlations between electrical properties and MBE growth parameters of Zn-polar BeMgZnO/ZnO heterostructures are discussed.