III-N Materials

Overview
With Band gap of .8ev for InN and 6.2ev for AlN at room temperature the
III-N materials covers very broad range of energy emission wavelength of
Infrared to deep U-V.
Electronically a very broad range of energies results in very high bulk
materials breakdown voltage which can be traded in for low effective mass
and high mobility.
Polar properties of these semiconductor plays a significant role in getting
very high carrier concentration at interfaces

contents
GaN
AlN
InN
BN
GaN
GaN is the basic material of this class which is typically used for all devices
requiring fast carrier transport, high breakdown voltage.
It is used as channel material in various FETs and also as base material in
HBTs
Most of the ohmic contact layers in III-N devices use binary n-type or p-
type GaN.

1. Crystal structure

I. Wurtzite :- At room temperature GaN, AlN, and InN are found in Wurtzite structure
while BN prevails Mostly in Cubic
II. ZincBlende:- The Zinc blende structure of GaN can also be found in Thin films
III. Rock salt phase :- rock salt phase is of no importance to electronic devices so far
In wurtzite structure the growth is typically performed along c-axis.
Recently growth along m-plane has been reported as a resulting non polar material has
positive influence on diode efficiency in optoelectronics.
2. Mechanical and optical properties

Vicker hardness(H) and fracture toughness(Kc) of various III-N is given in
table



c-BN is particularly hard material which makes it attractive for ceramic
applications. AlN,GaN,InN have approximately same Hardness.




Material GaN AlN InN BN SiC Si
H(GPa) 12 14 11.2 55-65 33 9
Kc(Mpa m
1/2
) 0.8 2.6 3.3 .7
Cofficient of thermal expansion(CTE)



Wz wurtzite, Sa epitaxially on sapphire substrate, c cubic, p powder
CTE is a very important parameter for growth CTE and its temperature
dependence have a similar impact to layer growth of heterostructures as the lattice
constants.
GaN
(wz)
GaN
(sa)
AlN InN BN SiC Sap. Si

a
(10
-6
K
-1
)
3.1 3.8 2.9 3.6 1.15 3.2 4.3 2.6

c
(10
-6
K
-1
) 2.8 2.9 3.4 2.6 3.2 3.2 2.6
3. Dielectric constants

Material GaN
(wz)
AlN
(wz)
InN
(wz)
GaN
(Zb)

BN
(c)
Si

r

9.5 8.5 15.3 9.5 7.1 11.9

r
(High freq)

5.5 4.77 8.4 5.35 4.5
In high frequency applications dielectric constant is a very crucial parameter.
III-N have generally smaller dielectric constant than Si. Except InN, which has
r
=11.9

Basic transport properties
Electronic transport in GaN is most understood. But a number of issues
remain for further research. e.g. maximum carrier velocity in bulk material at
hetero interface.
The next table show the variation of mobility of GaN with temperature,
doping and crystal structure.

Material n/p T N
D
/N
A


Mobility
GaN(wz) n 300 1e17 990
GaN(wz) n 450 1e17 391
GaN(wz) n 600 1e17 215
GaN(wz) n 300 3.6e16 150
GaN(wz) N(2deg) 300 0 2000
GaN(wz) n 77 1e16 6000
GaN(Zb) n 300 1e17 1100
GaN(Zb) n 300 0 2100
GaN(Zb) P(2deg) 300 1e13 250
From the table we can conclude that
I. Mobility in 2 DEG is far better than bulk
II. Mobility in zb structure is little bit better than wz structure.

Factors that affect mobility
Phonon scattering by acoustic and optical phonons
Ionized impurity scattering ,both background scattering and surface donors
Threading dislocations
Alloy scattering
At high fields peak velocities as high as 3e7 cm/sec are found for electron in
GaN
The difference between wurtzite and zincblende structure is found to be
insignificant
Vsat decreases with increase in donor concentration

Critical break down field

Material E
c

GaN 175kv/cm
AlN 450 kv/cm
InN 65kv/cm
Band structure of GaN
Band structure of GaN is not fully understood ,special with respect to higher
energy bands






m
e
=rest mass of electron

Material m
n
(m
e
)
m
n
(-K)
(m
e
)
m
n
(-A)
(m
e
)
m
n
(-M)
(m
e
)
GaN(wz) .2 .36 .27 .33
material m
p,
h

(m
e
)
m
p
l

(m
e
)
m
p,
so

(m
e
)
GaN(wz)

1.4 0.3 0.6
Intervalley seperatin energirss in K-space are of practical importance for the High
field transport of electron and holes
The data of wurtzite GaN are based on first principle calculation
At heterointerface between two semiconductors the energy band discontinuities and
bandgap alignments are of high importance as they determine the energy barrier
which carrier have to surmount.
All III-N materials lead to so called type I transistion.
Bandgap of GaN is about 3.43 ev at room temperature
AlN
Second to GaN, AlN is the most important material in the III-N system for
electronic applications
It is mainly used as its ternary compound Al
x
Ga
1-x
N.
It is characterized to be an insulator due to high band gap and high activation
energy.
Usually grown as nucleation layer to start growth on SiC or sapphire
substrate and as an interlayer at channel barrier interface


Mechanical and optical properties
Mass density is much smaller than GaN and InN
Thermal expansion and vicker hardness are similar to GaN
Intrinsic thermal conductivity is better than Si,GaAs, GaN but smaller than
BN,SiC,Diamond. This makes AlN a potentially attractive substrate material

Basic carrier transport properties
This is not of primary importance to most devices, except in very thin layers
close to channel. Transport in AlN is relatively very well investigated by M.C.
simulation
Low field mobility =135cm
2
/V.sec at N
D
=1e17
High field saturation velocity 1.4e7 cm/sec
Peak velocity 1.7e7 cm/sec

Band structure

Band gap of AlN is 6.2ev.
Band gap of Al
x
Ga
1-x
N can be modified in a broad range from value of
GaN to AlN.
With band gap of InN to be even smaller, wider range available in In
x
Al
1-x
N

InN
InN and its compound InGaN and InAlN are not so widely used in
electronic devices.
Indium content is low to achieve the lattice match to GaN buffer layer
MOCVD growth of InN is complicated because of high growth
temperature and resulting defect background concentration
The MBE growth of InN is under development to use full range of material
composition in InGaN
A bulk electron mobility of 3750 cm
2
/V.sec at 300K is obtained
The mobility at 150k is as high as 5100 cm
2
/V.sec
P type Inn has been recently reported which is essential for the realization of
bipolar or optoelectronic p-n devices.

Mechanical and optical properties
Data are given in table
Data are relatively uncertain due to lack real bulk InN
The CTE and lattice constants suggests the growth on sapphire substrate
(table2)
Thermal conductivity and heat capacity are still primarily based on estimates
and extrapolations.

BN
It can be found in several crystallographic forms but the most important
insulating or semiconductor form of BN is cubic form
Ceramic BN is widely used for industrial tools as abrasive
The great advantage of cubic BN is its Vicker hardness (table1) and thermal
cundicitivity(750 W/m.K achieved and 1300 W/m.K can be reached
theoretically)
Ultravoilet LEDs can be made from c-BN despite material growth
problem.which can operate as high as 530
0
C
Cubic BN is typically p-doped
Hole mobility of 500 cm
2
/V.sec is found at carrier concentration of 5e8
/cm
3

For n-type material only few experimental data exist
Break down field vary from 2-6 MV/cm
Band gap of cubic BN is found to be 6.4ev at RT