Ion Damage and Annealing of Epitaxial Gallium Nitride and Comparison With GaAs/AlGaAs Materials

Abstract

ABSTRACTIon damage build up has been measured by ion channeling in good quality epitaxial GaN films on sapphire. GaN is found to be remarkably resistant to ion damage, with extremely efficient dynamic defect annihilation occurring at liquid nitrogen temperature during ion implantation. When disorder does accumulate at doses around 1016cm−2 of 90 keV Si ions, the surface appears to be a strong sink for damage build up and possibly the nucleation of amorphous layers. Once ion disorder has been produced in GaN, it is extremely difficult to remove by annealing. GaN exhibits disordering and annealing behaviour which is somewhat similar to that in high Al-content AlGaAs.