(Invited) Gallium Nitride for Vertical Power Devices: Improving Morphology and Unintentional Impurities for Better Devices
Authors: Speck James S. , Farzana Esmat , Qwah Kai Shek , Biegler Zachary J. , Wissel-Garcia Ashley , Celupica-Liu Iris , Itoh Takeki 
Published: February 2024

While GaN has been researched for many years as a material for light emitting diodes, lasers, high electron mobility transistors, and other devices, further improvements to material purity are still needed to realize the full potential of this material for vertical device applications. To achieve high quality, high purity GaN for power devices, our research employs ammonia-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (NH3-MBE) and plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE). Past studies of fast growth rates (more than 1 μm/hr) and ultra-low impurity incorporation revealed that both PAMBE and NH3-MBE can achieve low net doping levels, and NH3-MBE as low as 1x1015 cm-3.1 However, This work also indicated that impurity incorporation increased with increasing growth rate.

Recent research efforts have focused on further improvements to morphology and unintentional dopants in NH3-MBE-grown homoepitaxial layers with fast growth rates. By optimizing growth conditions for faster growth rates and using indium as a surfactant, devices with drift layers up to 10 μm thick were grown. These layers exhibited smooth surface morphology as seen in AFM scans with RMS surface roughness as low as 0.21 nm for a 2x2 μm2 scan area.2 Adding the In surfactant also led to reduced incorporation of unintentional Si impurities in UID films as shown by SIMS depth profiles for GaN films grown with and without In. The extremely low impurity levels were further confirmed by CV measurements which indicated that the net doping density in the UID GaN layers decreased from 2x1016 cm-3 to 5x1015 cm-3 with the addition of the In surfactant.2 Based on these UID levels and the theoretical critical electric field of GaN (3 MV/cm), drift layers up to 29.5 μm and 7.4 μm can be depleted with a triangular electric field profile for net donor concentrations of 5x1015 cm-3 and 2x1016 cm-3, respectively. Devices with the same net concentrations with drift regions 3 μm thick can hold voltages of 854 V and 717 V, respectively.

Based on the previously described studies of low-impurity GaN at different growth rates, we developed vertical p-n GaN power devices grown by NH3 MBE.3 These p-n diodes contained a 0.25 µm n+ region, 4 µm n- region with 3x1015 cm-3 unintentional carriers, 0.4 µm p+ region and 10nm p++ capping layer to improve the ohmic anode contact. The circular diodes were fabricated with Pd/Pt anode contacts and Ti/Au cathode contacts. Device diameters were between 80 and 100 µm. The devices featured a 15 µm field plate made from Ti/Au contacts on top of an Al2O3/Si3N4 dielectric stack.

The diodes exhibited outstanding forward J-V behavior with a low specific on-resistance (Ron,sp) of 0.28 mΩ-cm2 and a minimum ideality factor of 1.36, which are among the best achieved among similar homoepitaxial GaN p-n diodes.3-5 The best diodes also exhibited a breakdown voltage of > 1 kV (equipment limit 1 kV). The reverse-voltage properties indicate that punch-through was achieved with a peak electric field (EC) >2.6 MV/cm, as confirmed by Silvaco simulations (Fig. 7). The combination of >1 kV breakdown voltage and on-resistance of 0.28 mΩ-cm2 represents one of the best performances of the p-n GaN diodes, achieved with a significantly thinner drift layer compared to comparable MOCVD GaN p-n diodes with drift layers more than 8 µm. Work is ongoing to develop NH3-MBE p-n diodes with indium surfactant-assisted drift layer growth which shows promise to further improve the surface morphology, reduce leakage, and enhance breakdown performance of the vertical devices.