GaN holds significant potential as a material for vertical p-n diodes, enabling the realization of devices with reverse breakdown voltages of 5 kV or higher. Carbon serves as the primary compensating dopant in the growth process, incorporated into GaN during metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) growth. The level of carbon incorporation depends on several factors, including growth rate, ammonia flow, temperature, pressure, and trimethylgallium (TMGa) flow. Through guided empirical modeling, it was demonstrated that the carbon incorporation in GaN growth could be predicted using a single parameter based on the ratio of ammonia flow to the growth rate. This model accurately predicts carbon concentrations ranging from 1x1017 to 5x1014 cm-3 while allowing for maximized growth rates. Other extrinsic dopants have either been reduced below the threshold of consideration or modeled using similar single-parameter relationships. By identifying the dominant extrinsic dopants and accounting for them, an intrinsic defect with a concentration of 2.2x1015 cm-3 was identified. By combining these relationships, growth conditions for n-GaN were optimized, resulting in electron concentrations as low as 1x1015 cm-3. Leveraging these techniques, p-n diodes were grown, achieving a reverse breakdown voltage as high as 3.1 kV. / Doctor of Philosophy / Power electronic devices based on vertical GaN have the potential to revolutionize applications such as electric vehicles, solar charging systems, and the smart grid. However, there are significant materials challenges that need to be addressed in order to realize these devices. They must be extremely pure and extremely thick. Unfortunately, the primary source of these materials also contains carbon, which can negatively impact purity. To overcome this challenge, an empirical model for the growth process has been developed. This model enables independent control over the carbon source and the removal of carbon, using a single parameter. By leveraging this model, it becomes possible to optimize the trade-off between high purity, high growth rates, and ideal electronic properties. Using these techniques, devices were grown with next-generation levels of performance at minimal time and cost.

In recent years, advanced high κ gate dielectrics are under serious consideration to replace SiO2 and SiON in semiconductor industry. Hafnium-based dielectrics such as hafnium oxides, oxynitrides and Hf-based silicates/nitrided silicates are emerging as some of the most promising alternatives to SiO2/SiON gate dielectrics in complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices. Extensive efforts have been taken to understand the effects of hydrogen impurities in semiconductors and its behavior such as incorporation, diffusion, trapping and release with the aim of controlling and using it to optimize the performance of electronic device structures. In this dissertation, a systematic study of hydrogen trapping and the role of carbon impurities in various alternate gate dielectric candidates, HfO2/Si, HfxSi1-xO2/Si, HfON/Si and HfON(C)/Si is presented. It has been shown that processing of high κ dielectrics may lead to some crystallization issues. Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) for measuring oxygen deficiencies, elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) for quantifying hydrogen and nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) for quantifying carbon, X-ray diffraction (XRD) for measuring degree of crystallinity and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to characterize these thin dielectric materials. ERDA data are used to characterize the evolution of hydrogen during annealing in hydrogen ambient in combination with preprocessing in oxygen and nitrogen.