Analysis of high Mg-incorporation into GaN via PAMBE modulation doping and molecular dynamics simulations

This work concerns the investigation of high Mg incorporation in GaN. Mg is a widely used p-dopant for GaN, which could benefit from high dopant concentration, as well as high activation, through novel growth methods. This has the potential to create high performance GaN devices, owing to the use of quality p-doped GaN. We carry out this investigation on two fronts. First, we explore the feasibility of PAMBE based modulation doping as the growth method of choice for high incorporation. We conduct growth experiments based on variations of Ga, N, and Mg fluxes, and assess the quality of the films and resulting p-doped samples using SIMS, XRD, CV, and Hall measurements. Second, we carry out atomistic simulations, using MD and KMC, to develop insights into the growth of GaN crystals, guiding the growth process as a result. We incorporate 3-body Tersoff potentials, developed specifically for GaN, to simulate GaN growth through MD. We extract migration, absorption, and desorption statistics, and utilize these transition rates in a computationally efficient method, KMC. Use of high quality p-doped GaN in power devices will help further advance this technology in terms of efficiency, compactness, and power handling.