Influence of growth temperature and temperature ramps on deep level defect incorporation in m-plane GaN

The dependence of deep level defect incorporation in m-plane GaN films grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition on bulk m-plane GaN substrates as a function of growth temperature (Tg) and Tg ramping method was investigated using deep level optical spectroscopy. Understanding the influence of Tg on GaN deep level incorporation is important for InGaN/GaN multi-quantum well (MQW) light emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs) because GaN quantum barrier (QB) layers are grown much colder than thin film GaN to accommodate InGaN QW growth. Deep level spectra of low Tg (800 °C) GaN films grown under QB conditions were compared to deep level spectra of high Tg (1150 °C) GaN. Reducing Tg, increased the defect density significantly (>50×) through introduction of emergent deep level defects at 2.09 eV and 2.9 eV below the conduction band minimum. However, optimizing growth conditions during the temperature ramp when transitioning from high to low Tg substantially reduced the density of these emergent deep levels by approximately 40%. The results suggest that it is important to consider the potential for non-radiative recombination in QBs of LED or LD active regions, and tailoring the transition from high Tg GaN growth to active layer growth can mitigate such non-radiative channels