Electrical resistivity, MNM transition and band-gap narrowing of cubic GaN:Si

Abstract

The electrical resistivity of the Si-donor cubic GaN is investigated theoretically at low temperature. The critical impurity concentration, Nc, for the metal–nonmetal transition is estimated in three different ways: from using the generalized Drude approach (GDA) for the resistivity; from the vanishing of the chemical potential calculated using the dielectric function model with a Lorentz-Lorenz correction; from finding the crossing point between the energy in the insulating and metallic states. The bandgap narrowing (BGN) has been determined theoretically and experimentally above the MNM transition. The experimental data have been obtained with photoluminescence measurements. Theoretical and experimental results are in rough agreement in the range of impurity concentration of interest.