Review of radiation damage in GaN-based materials and devices

Stephen J. Pearton, Richard Deist, Fan Ren, Lu Liu, Alexander Y. Polyakov, Jihyun Kim

    Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

    205 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    A review of the effects of proton, neutron, γ-ray, and electron irradiation on GaN materials and devices is presented. Neutron irradiation tends to create disordered regions in the GaN, while the damage from the other forms of radiation is more typically point defects. In all cases, the damaged region contains carrier traps that reduce the mobility and conductivity of the GaN and at high enough doses, a significant degradation of device performance. GaN is several orders of magnitude more resistant to radiation damage than GaAs of similar doping concentrations. In terms of heterostructures, preliminary data suggests that the radiation hardness decreases in the order AlN/GaN > AlGaN/GaN > InAlN/GaN, consistent with the average bond strengths in the Al-based materials.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number050801
    JournalJournal of Vacuum Science and Technology A: Vacuum, Surfaces and Films
    Volume31
    Issue number5
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2013 Sept

    Bibliographical note

    Funding Information:
    The work at UF was supported by DTRA award HDTRA1-08-10-BRCWMD-BAA. The work at IRM was supported by a grant from Russian Foundation for Basic Research (05-02-08015) and ICTS (3029). The authors thank their collaborators at IRM, A. V. Govorkov N. B. Smirnov, and also Leonid Chernyak at UCF for helpful discussions.

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Condensed Matter Physics
    • Surfaces and Interfaces
    • Surfaces, Coatings and Films

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