Observation of positive and small electron affinity of Si-doped AlN films grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition on n-type 6H–SiC**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61574135, 61574134, 61474142, 61474110, 61377020, 61376089, 61223005, and 61321063), the One Hundred Person Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Basic Research Project of Jiangsu Province, China

Abstract

We have investigated the electron affinity of Si-doped AlN films (NSi = 1.0 × 1018–1.0 × 1019 cm−3) with thicknesses of 50, 200, and 400 nm, synthesized by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) under low pressure on the n-type (001)6H–SiC substrates. The positive and small electron affinity of AlN films was observed through the ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) analysis, where an increase in electron affinity appears with the thickness of AlN films increasing, i.e., 0.36 eV for the 50-nm-thick one, 0.58 eV for the 200-nm-thick one, and 0.97 eV for the 400-nm-thick one. Accompanying the x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis on the surface contaminations, it suggests that the difference of electron affinity between our three samples may result from the discrepancy of surface impurity contaminations.