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Practical Surface Treatments and Surface Chemistry of n-Type and p-Type GaN

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Abstract

X-ray and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopies (XPS and UPS) were used to study the electronic structure of n-GaN and p-GaN(0001) surfaces after three ex situ surface treatments: aq-HCl, annealing in NH3, and annealing in HCl vapor. The combination of in situ vacuum annealing and re-exposure of samples to air revealed that the adsorption of ambient contaminants can reduce the surface state density and subsequent band bending on both n-GaN and p-GaN surfaces. Insights derived from first-principles calculations of the adsorption of relevant species on the Ga-terminated GaN(0001) surface are used to explain these experimental observations qualitatively.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support for this work provided by the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center on Nanostructured Materials and Interfaces (NSF-DMR-0520527) at the University of Wisconsin and the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship Program is greatly appreciated. Computational resources were provided by the US Army Engineering Research and Development Center and the Department of Defense Naval Oceanographic Office. Part of the calculations was pursued at NRL and ARSC computational resources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    J.J. Uhlrich, L.C. Grabow, M. Mavrikakis & T.F. Kuech

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  1. J.J. Uhlrich
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  2. L.C. Grabow
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  3. M. Mavrikakis
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  4. T.F. Kuech
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Correspondence to J.J. Uhlrich.

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Uhlrich, J., Grabow, L., Mavrikakis, M. et al. Practical Surface Treatments and Surface Chemistry of n-Type and p-Type GaN. J. Electron. Mater. 37, 439–447 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-007-0348-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-007-0348-5

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