Surface photovoltage spectroscopy of minority carrier diffusion lengths in undoped and Si‐doped GaN epitaxial films

Abstract

Undoped- and Si-doped GaN epitaxial films were grown on sapphire substrates by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. Variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry (VASE) and surface photovoltage (SPV) spectroscopy were used to determine the minority carrier diffusion lengths in the films. Both the reflectivity (R) and absorption coefficient (α) could be calculated from the VASE measurements. In the SPV spectra at room temperature, a strong transition with a threshold at 3.42 eV was observed in both films, while an exciton-related absorption was observed only in the undoped GaN. The minority carrier diffusion lengths were measured to be about 200 nm for the undoped GaN and about 20 nm for the Si-doped GaN. Moreover, a large divergence in the range of 1/α in the undoped GaN was found and attributed to a high surface barrier energy. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)