Diffusion mechanism and the thermal stability of fluorine ions in GaN after ion implantation

The diffusion mechanisms of fluorine ions in GaN are investigated by means of time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. Instead of incorporating fluorine ions close to the sample surface by fluorine plasma treatment, fluorine ion implantation with an energy of 180 keV is utilized to implant fluorine ions deep into the GaN bulk, preventing the surface effects from affecting the data analysis. It is found that the diffusion of fluorine ions in GaN is a dynamic process featuring an initial out-diffusion followed by in- diffusion and the final stabilization. A vacancy-assisted diffusion model is proposed to account for the experimental observations, which is also consistent with results on molecular dynamic simulation. Fluorine ions tend to occupy Ga vacancies induced by ion implantation and diffuse to vacancy rich regions. The number of continuous vacancy chains can be significantly reduced by a dynamic thermal annealing process. As a result, strong local confinement and stabilization of fluorine ions can be obtained in GaN crystal, suggesting excellent thermal stability of fluorine ions for device applications.