Boosting the doping efficiency of Mg in p-GaN grown on the free-standing GaN substrates

The Mg doping efficiency is found to be drastically enhanced in the p-GaN films grown on the free-standing GaN substrates by metal organic chemical vapor deposition. The free hole concentrations are five and ten times higher in the lightly and heavily Mg-doped homoepitaxial p-GaN, respectively, than those in the p-GaN-on-GaN/sapphires grown and activated at the same conditions although the Mg incorporation concentrations {[Mg]} are much lower. The indication of the p-type conductivity in the photoluminescence spectra at room temperature in p-GaN-on-GaN substrates is found to be the dominant ultraviolet luminescence band located at around 3.26 eV. This behavior is different in the heteroepitaxial p-GaN, for which the fingerprint of the p-type conductivity is the emergence of blue luminescence bands at around 2.9 eV. The markedly enhanced activation efficiency is attributed to the suppression of self-compensation centers in the high-quality homoepitaxial films. The Mg-Ga-O disordered layer, which is typically observed on the surface of p-GaN-on-GaN/sapphires due to the Mg diffusion along edge-type dislocations, is also inhibited on the homoepitaxial p-GaN film, which is beneficial for the stable operation of the vertical-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors.