Poole-Frenkel effect on electrical characterization of Al-doped ZnO films deposited on p-type GaN

Bohr Ran Huang, Chung Chi Liao, Wen Cheng Ke, Yuan Ching Chang, Hao Ping Huang, Nai Chuan Chen

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

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Abstract

This paper presents the electrical properties of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) films directly grown on two types of p-type GaN thin films. The low-pressure p-GaN thin films (LP-p-GaN) exhibited structural properties of high-density edge-type threading dislocations (TDs) and compensated defects (i.e., nitrogen vacancy). Compared with high-pressure p-GaN thin films (HP-p-GaN), X-ray photoemission spectroscopy of Ga 3d core levels indicated that the surface Fermi-level shifted toward the higher binding-energy side by approximately 0.7eV. The high-density edge-type TDs and compensated defects enabled surface Fermi-level shifting above the intrinsic Fermi-level, causing the surface of LP-p-GaN thin films to invert to n-type semiconductor. A highly nonlinear increase in leakage current regarding reverse-bias voltage was observed for AZO/LP-p-GaN. The theoretical fits for the reverse-bias voltage region indicated that the field-assisted thermal ionization of carriers from defect associated traps, which is known as the Poole-Frenkel effect, dominated the I-V behavior of AZO/LP-p-GaN. The fitting result estimated the trap energy level at 0.62eV below the conduction band edge. In addition, the optical band gap increased from 3.50eV for as-deposited AZO films to 3.62eV for 300°C annealed AZO films because of the increased carrier concentration. The increasing Fermi-level of the 300°C annealed AZO films enabled the carrier transport to move across the interface into the LP-p-GaN thin films without any thermal activated energy. Thus, the Ohmic behavior of AZO contact can be achieved directly on the low-pressure p-GaN films at room temperature.

Original languageEnglish
Article number113705
JournalJournal of Applied Physics
Volume115
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - 21 03 2014

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