Stable and metastable Si negative-U centers in AlGaN and AlN

Electron paramagnetic resonance studies of Si-doped AlxGa1−xN (0.79 ≤ x ≤ 1.0) reveal two Si negative-U (or DX) centers, which can be separately observed for x ≥ 0.84. We found that for the stable DX center, the energy |EDX| of the negatively charged state DX−, which is also considered as the donor activation energy, abruptly increases with Al content for x ∼ 0.83–1.0 approaching ∼240 meV in AlN, whereas EDX remains to be close to the neutral charge state Ed for the metastable DX center (∼11 meV below Ed in AlN).