The interest in the growth of III-V compound semiconductors such as GaAs and AlGaAs on high index planes has increased tremendously over the last few years. The structural, optical and electrical properties III-V based structures are found to improve by, growing on (nil) planes. For example the amphoteric nature of silicon (Si) facilitates the Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) growth of p-type GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures on (311)A that have higher hole mobilities than those based on the conventional Be-doped p-type on (100) GaAs plane. The incorporation of intentional impurities, such as Si or Be in III-V semiconductors, have desirable effects in terms of controlling the electrical conductivity of the materials. However, other unintentionally incorporated impurities and defects have deleterious effects on the electrical and optical properties of III-V based devices. In this thesis, current-voltage-temperature (I-V-T), capacitance-voltage (C-V) Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS) and Laplace DLTS techniques have been used to investigate defects in several MBE III-V epilayers and modulated structures grown both on the conventional (100) and non-(100) GaAs substrates. These include: (i) n-type silicon-doped (n11)B (n = 2-5) GaAs epitaxial layers; (ii) n-type silicon-doped (100) and (311)B GaAs/AlGaAs multi-quantum well (MQW); (iii) n-type silicon-doped (100) MQWs grown at different substrate temperatures, arsenic overpressures and arsenic species (As2 and As4); (iv) p-type Be-doped (100) and (311)A AlGaAs epitaxial layers; (v) GaAs/AlGaAs two dimensional electron gas (2DEG); (vi) commercially grown high electron mobility transistors (HEMT). The main findings of the experimental results are given in the following: 1. n-type silicon-doped (n11)B (n = 2-5) GaAs: the overall density of defects is highest in (211)B and lowest in (511)B. The number of detected defects is minimum in (511)B. The common carbon background impurity in MBE is observed only in (100) substrates. 2. n-type silicon-doped (100) and (311)B GaAs/AlGaAs MQWs: the concentration of the only trap is higher in (100) than in (311)B orientation. Furthermore, in (100) the observed trap electrically charged, while it has neutral nature in (311)B. 3. n-type silicon-doped (100) MQWs grown at different substrate temperatures, arsenic overpressures and arsenic species (As2 and As4): the average trap concentration for As2 samples is lower than Asa samples. In addition, the concentration of the common VAs-related point defect decreases with increasing growth temperature and arsenic overpressure. 4. p-type Be-doped (100) and (311)A AlGaAs: the number of hole traps in (311)A decreases from five to one when the Be-doping level varies from 1 x 1016 cm-3 to 1 x 1017 cm3. For (100) the detected hole levels are three, four and two for Be-concentrations of 1ix 016 cm -3 , 3x1016 cm-3 and 1x1017 cm 3, respectively. In addition, an electron emitting level is observed only in (100) samples doped to 1 x1017 cm 3. 5. GaAs/AlGaAs 2DEG and HEMT devices: one major defect, assigned to the DX center, is common in both in-house grown 2DEG and commercially HEMT devices. It behaves as a generation-recombination center, and its concentration is directly related to the silicon doping level in the AlGaAs layer. The HEMT devices which showed poor frequency response are found to have the highest concentration of the DX center.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:555503 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Mari, Ruaz Hussain |
| Publisher | University of Nottingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14211/ |
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