Electrical Activation Studies of Silicon Implanted Aluminum Gallium Nitride with High Aluminum Mole Fraction

This research demonstrates a method for producing highly conductive Si-implanted n-type aluminum gallium nitride (AlxGa1-xN) alloys, and represents a comprehensive analysis of the resulting material's electrical and optical properties as a function of Al mole fraction, anneal temperature, anneal time and implantation dose. Highly conductive alloys are critical to the fabrication of devices operative in deep UV, high-temperature, high-power, and high-frequency environments, and thus this research is significant in regard to the application of such devices. The AlxGa1-xN wafers of this study, with Al concentrations of 10 to 50%, were implanted at room temperature with silicon ions at energies of 200 keV with doses of 1x1014, 5x1014, and 1x1015 cm-2 and annealed from 1100 to 1350-C for 20 to 40 minutes in flowing nitrogen.