Study of neutron irradiated structures of ammonothermal GaN

Abstract

Study of the radiation damage in GaN-based materials becomes an important aspect for possible application of the GaN detectors in the harsh radiation environment at the Large Hadron Collider and at other particle acceleration facilities. Intentionally doped and semi-insulating bulk ammonothermal GaN materials were studied to reveal the dominant defects introduced by reactor neutron irradiations. These radiation defects have been identified by combining electron spin resonance and transmission spectroscopy techniques. Characteristics of carrier lifetime dependence on neutron irradiation fluence were examined. Variations of the response of the capacitor-type sensors with neutron irradiation fluence have been correlated with the carrier lifetime changes. The measurements of the photoconductivity and photoluminescence transients have been used to study the variation of the parameters of radiative and non-radiative recombination. The examined characteristics indicate that AT GaN as a particle sensing material is radiation hard up to high hadron fluences ⩾1016 cm−2.