Characteristics of Deep Traps in Freestanding GaN

Abstract

Deep traps in a 300-m m-thick freestanding GaN sample were characterized by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS), using Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) fabricated on the Ga polarity surface. Most of the SBDs show nearly ideal current-voltage characteristics, with both forward and reverse currents controlled by the thermionic emission mechanism. Five common traps, which include A1 (1.0 eV), A (0.66 eV), B (0.59 eV), C (0.35 eV), and D (0.25 eV), can be consistently observed in all SBDs. Two of them, A1 and C, are related to surface damage. Surprisingly, some new traps can be found in the DLTS spectra of some SBDs if higher reverse biases are used in the measurements. However, they cannot be fitted by DLTS simulations, and are likely associated with parasitic capacitance somewhere in the cryostat