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Gallium nitride surface protection during RTA annealing with a GaO x N y cap-layer

2016; IOP Publishing; Volume: 31; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1088/0268-1242/31/4/045008

1361-6641

Wahid Khalfaoui, Thomas Oheix, F. Cayrel, Roland Benoit, Arnaud Yvon, Emmanuel Collard, Daniel Alquier,

ZnO doping and properties

Gallium nitride (GaN) is generally considered a good candidate for power electronic devices such as Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs). Nevertheless, GaN has a strong sensitivity to high temperature treatments and a cap-layer is mandatory to protect the material surface during annealing at high temperature such as post-implantation treatments. In this work, an oxidized gallium nitride layer (GaOxNy) was generated with Oxford PECVD equipment using a N2O plasma treatment to protect the GaN surface during a rapid thermal annealing (RTA), in the range of 1000 °C–1150 °C for a few minutes. Before annealing, c-TLM patterns were processed on the GaOxNy/GaN sample to characterize its sheet resistance. After the N2O plasma treatment, the sample exhibited lower sheet resistance, indicating a better n-type conduction of the GaOxNy layer due to an excess of free carriers, compared to the as-grown GaN layer. The GaOxNy/GaN surface was then annealed at 1150 °C for 3 min and observed through AFM imaging. The surface exhibited a good quality with a low roughness, nevertheless, a low density of small hexagonal pits appeared after annealing. Finally, studies to determine an efficient etching process of the GaOxNy cap-layer were conducted using both chemical and physical approaches. We observed that efficient etching of the layer was achieved using a heated hydrofluoridric acid (HF 25%) solution. To conclude, GaOxNy has proved to be an efficient cap-layer for GaN protection at high temperature.