Mechanism for self-compensation in heavily carbon doped GaN
Zhaohua Shen,
Xuelin Yang,
Shan Wu,
Huayang Huang,
Xiaolan Yan,
Ning Tang,
Fujun Xu,
Xinqiang Wang,
Weikun Ge,
Bing Huang,
Bo Shen
Affiliations
Zhaohua Shen
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, Nano-optoelectronics Frontier Center of Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
Xuelin Yang
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, Nano-optoelectronics Frontier Center of Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
Shan Wu
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, Nano-optoelectronics Frontier Center of Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
Huayang Huang
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, Nano-optoelectronics Frontier Center of Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
Xiaolan Yan
Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing 100193, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China
Ning Tang
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, Nano-optoelectronics Frontier Center of Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
Fujun Xu
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, Nano-optoelectronics Frontier Center of Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
Xinqiang Wang
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, Nano-optoelectronics Frontier Center of Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
Weikun Ge
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, Nano-optoelectronics Frontier Center of Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
Bing Huang
Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing 100193, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China
Bo Shen
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, Nano-optoelectronics Frontier Center of Ministry of Education, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China
Heavy carbon (C) doping is of great significance for semi-insulating GaN in power electronics. However, the doping behaviors, especially the atomic configurations and related self-compensation mechanisms, are still under debate. Here, with the formation energy as the input parameter, the concentrations of C defects with different atomic configurations are calculated by taking the configurational entropy into account. The result shows that the concentrations of tri-carbon complexes (CNCiCN, where Ci refers to interstitial carbon) and dicarbon complexes (CNCGa) cannot be neglected under heavy doping conditions. The concentration of CNCiCN can even exceed that of CN at sufficiently high doping levels. Especially, we suggest that it is the tri-carbon complex CNCiCN, instead of the commonly expected CGa, that acts as the self-compensation centers in semi-insulating GaN under heavy C doping conditions. The results provide a fresh look on the long-standing problem about the self-compensation mechanisms in C doped GaN.
