Electron mobility limited by scattering from threading dislocation lines within gallium nitride

Abstract

Theoretical as well as experimental studies in the literature suggest that defect sites associated with the threading dislocation lines within [Formula: see text]-type gallium nitride (GaN) act to trap free electrons from the bulk of this semiconductor material. As a result, the core of the threading dislocation lines become negatively charged. The charge accumulated along the core of a threading dislocation line should be screened by a charge of opposite polarity and equal in absolute value per unit length along the dislocation line. In the present work, we model this screened charge buildup along the threading dislocation lines by two concentric space-charge cylinders. Quantum mechanical theory of scattering in cylindrical coordinates is then employed in order to numerically compute the electron mobility limited by scattering from the charged threading dislocation lines. The dependence of the computed electron mobility on the dislocation line density and on the amount of charge accumulated per unit length along the core of the dislocation lines is also investigated in this work. Our computed electron mobility results are compared with results from existing calculations of the GaN dislocation scattering limited electron mobility in the literature.