Electronic Energy Levels in Group-III Nitrides

D W Palmer, 2011
This article is a detailed review of the published information concerning the electronic energy levels created
within the valence-band to conduction-band energy gap of crystalline boron nitride, aluminum nitride, gallium nitride
and indium nitride by the presence of lattice defects and impurities. Theoretical and experimental data for the
zinc-blende and wurtzite structures are considered in detail, and certainties and uncertainties concerning the energy
levels and their tlikely impurity or defect identities are assessed.
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PROPERTY / MATERIAL . Cubic (Beta) AlN Hexagonal (Alpha) AlN Structure Zinc Blende Wurzite Space Group F bar4 3m C46v ( = P63mc) Stability Meta-stable Stable Lattice Parameter(s) at 300K 0.436 nm a0=0.3111 nm c0 = 0.4978 nm Density at 300K 3.285 g.cm-3 3.255 g.cm-3 Elastic Moduli at 300 K . . . . . . Linear Therm. Expansion Coeff. at 300 K . . . Along a0: 5.3×10-6 K-1 Along c0: 4.2×10-6 K-1 Calculated Spontaneous Polarisations Not Applicable – 0.081 C m-2 Bernardini et al 1997 Bernardini & Fiorentini 1999 Calculated Piezo-electric Coefficients Not Applicable e33 = + 1.46 C m-2 e31 = – 0.60 C m-2 Bernardini et al 1997 Bernardini & Fiorentini 1999 Phonon Energies . . . . . . Thermal Conductivity near 300K . . . Units: Wcm-1K-1 Tansley et al 1997b 3.0 to 3.3 for thick, free-standing AlN Florescu et al, 2001 Melting Point . . . . . .. K Dielectric Constant at Lowish Frequency . . . Mean = 9.14 Refractive Index . . . 2.15±0.05 at 3eV Tansley et al 1997b Nature of Energy Gap Eg Direct Direct Energy Gap Eg at 300 K . . . eV 6.2 eV Yoshida et al 1982 Vurgaftman et al (2001) Energy Gap Eg at 5 K . . . 6.28 eV Vurgaftman et al (2001) Intrinsic Carrier Conc. at 300 K . . . . . . Ionisation Energy of . . . Donor . . . . . . . Electron Mobility at 300 K for n= . . . . . . . . Electron Mobility at 77 K for n= . . . . . . . . . Ionisation Energy of . . . Acceptor . . . . . . Hole Mobility at 300 K for p= . . . . . . . . . . Hole Mobility at 77 K for p=. . . . . . . . . . . Cubic (Beta) AlN Hexagonal (Alpha) AlN Return to Top of this Page Return to the “SEMICONDUCTORS INFORMATION” Home Page PROPERTY / MATERIAL . Cubic (Beta) GaN . Hexagonal (Alpha) GaN . Structure Zinc Blende Wurzite Space Group F bar4 3m C46v ( = P63mc) Stability Meta-stable Stable Lattice Parameter(s) at 300K 0.450 nm a0 = 0.3189 nm c0 = 0.5185 nm Density at 300K 6.10 g.cm-3 6.095 g.cm-3 Elastic Moduli at 300 K . . . . . . Linear Thermal Expansion Coeff. at 300 K . . . Along a0: 5.59×10-6 K-1 Along c0: 7.75×10-6 K-1 Calculated Spontaneous Polarisations Not Applicable – 0.029 C m-2 Bernardini et al 1997 Bernardini & Fiorentini 1999 Calculated Piezo-electric Coefficients Not Applicable e33 = + 0.73 C m-2 e31 = – 0.49 C m-2 Bernardini et al 1997 Bernardini & Fiorentini 1999 Phonon Energies TO: 68.9 meV LO: 91.8 meV A1(TO): 66.1 meV E1(TO): 69.6 meV E2: 70.7 meV A1(LO): 91.2 meV E1(LO): 92.1 meV Debye Temperature   600K (estimated) Slack, 1973 Thermal Conductivity near 300K . . . Units: Wcm-1K-1 1.3, Tansley et al 1997b 2.2±0.2 for thick, free-standing GaN Vaudo et al, 2000 2.1 (0.5) for LEO material where few (many) dislocations Florescu et al, 2000, 2001 circa 1.7 to 1.0 for n=1×1017 to 4×1018cm-3 in HVPE material Florescu, Molnar et al, 2000 2.3 ± 0.1 in Fe-doped HVPE material of ca. 2 x108 ohm-cm, & dislocation density ca. 105 cm-2 (effects of T & dislocation density also given). Mion et al, 2006a, 2006b Melting Point . . . . . . Dielectric Constant at Low/Lowish Frequency . . . Along a0: 10.4 Along c0: 9.5 Refractive Index 2.9 at 3eV Tansley et al 1997b 2.67 at 3.38eV Tansley et al 1997b Nature of Energy Gap Eg Direct Direct Energy Gap Eg at 1237K   2.73 eV Ching-Hua Su et al, 2002 Energy Gap Eg at 293-1237 K   3.556 – 9.9×10-4T2 / (T+600) eV         Ching-Hua Su et al, 2002 Energy Gap Eg at 300 K 3.23 eV Ramirez-Flores et al 1994 . 3.25 eV Logothetidis et al 1994 3.44 eV Monemar 1974 . 3.45 eV Koide et al 1987 . 3.457 eV Ching-Hua Su et al, 2002 Energy Gap Eg at ca. 0 K 3.30 eV Ramirez-Flores et al1994 Ploog et al 1995 3.50 eV Dingle et al 1971 Monemar 1974 Intrinsic Carrier Conc. at 300 K . . . . . . Ionisation Energy of . . . Donor . . . . . . . Electron effective mass me* / m0 . . . 0.22 Moore et al, 2002 Electron Mobility at 300 K for n = 1×1017 cm-3: for n = 1×1018 cm-3: for n = 1×1019 cm-3: . . . . ca. 500 cm2V-1s-1 ca. 240 cm2V-1s-1 ca. 150 cm2V-1s-1 Rode & Gaskill, 1995 Tansley et al 1997a Electron Mobility at 77 K for n = . . . . . . . . . Ionisation Energy of Acceptors . . . Mg: 160 meV Amano et al 1990 Mg: 171 meV Zolper et al 1995 Ca: 169 meV Zolper et al 1996 Hole Hall Mobility at 300 K for p= . . . . . . . . . . Hole Hall Mobility at 77 K for p= . . . . . . . . . . . Cubic (Beta) GaN Hexagonal (Alpha) GaN Return to Top of this Page Return to the “SEMICONDUCTORS INFORMATION” Home Page Hexagonal (Alpha) InN . Structure Zinc Blende Wurzite Space Group F bar4 3m C46v ( = P63mc) Stability Meta-stable Stable Lattice Parameter(s) at 300K 0.498 nm a0 = 0.3544 nm c0 = 0.5718nm Density at 300K 6.93 g.cm-3 6.81 g.cm-3 Elastic Moduli at 300 K . . . . . . Linear Therm. Expansion Coeff. at 300 K . . . ca. 4 x 10-6 K-1 Tansley et al 1997b Calculated Spontaneous Polarisations Not Applicable – 0.032 C m-2 Bernardini et al 1997 Bernardini & Fiorentini 1999 Calculated Piezo-electric Coefficients Not Applicable e33 = + 0.97 C m-2 e31 = – 0.57 C m-2 Bernardini et al 1997 Bernardini & Fiorentini 1999 Elastic Moduli at 300 K . . . . . . Phonon Energies . . . . . . Thermal Conductivity . . . 0.8±0.2 Wcm-1K-1 Tansley et al 1997b Melting Point . . . . . .. K Dielectric Constant at Low/Lowish Frequency . . . ca. 15 Tansley et al 1997b Refractive Index . . . 2.9-3.05 Tansley et al 1997b Nature of Energy Gap Eg Direct Direct Energy Gap Eg at 300K. . . . . . . Energy Gap Eg at 2K Some Details of Publications that considered the InN band-gap. . . . . 0.692±0.002eV Arnaudov et al 2004 . Intrinsic Carrier Conc. at 300 K . . . . . . Ionisation Energy of . . . Donor . . . . . . Electron Hall Mobility at 300 K for n= . . . . . . . . . . Electron Hall Mobility at 77 K for n= . . . . . . . . . . Ionisation Energy of . . . Acceptor . . . . . . Hole Hall Mobility at 300 K for p= . . . . . . . . . . . Hole Hall Mobility at 77 K for p= . . . . . . . . Cubic (Beta) InN Hexagonal (Alpha) InN INDIVIDUAL REFERENCES Amano H, Kitoh M, Hiramatsu H & Akasaki I, 1990, J.Electrochem.Soc. 137, 1639 Arnaudov B, Pashkova t, Paskov PP, Magnusson B, Valcheva E, Monemar B, Lu H, Schaff WJ, Amano H and Akasaki I, Phys. Rev. B 69 (March 2004) 115216 Bernardini F, Fiorentini V and Vanderbilt D, 1997, Phys. Rev. B 56, R10024 Bernardini F and Fiorentini V, 1999, phys. stat. sol. 216, 391 . . . . (Proc. Internat. Conf. on Nitride Semiconductors, 1999, Montpellier, France) Ching-Hua Su et al, 2002, J. of Crystal Growth 235, 111-114 Dingle R, Sell DD, Stokowski SE and Ilegems M, 1971, Phys.Rev.B 4, 1211 Florescu D I et al, 2000, Appl.Phys.Lett. 77, 1464 Florescu D I, Molnar R J et al, 2000, J.Appl.Phys 88, 3295 Florescu D I, Asnin V M and Pollak F H, (2001) Compound Semiconductor 7, 62 (a review) Logothetidis S, Petals J, Cardona M and Moustakes TD, 1994, Phys.Rev.B 50, 18017 Mion C, Muth J F, Preble E A & Hanser D, 2006a, Appl.Phys.Lett. 89, 092123 Mion C, Muth J F, Preble E A & Hanser D, 2006b, Superlattices . . . . & Microstructures 40, 338 Monemar B, 1974, Phys.Rev.B 10, 676 Moore W J, Freitas J A Jnr, Lee S K, Paark S S and Han J Y, 2002, . . . . . Phys Rev B 65, 081201 Ploog K H, Brandt O, Yang H, Menniger J and Klann R, 1995, . . . . Proc. TWN-95 Conference, Nagoya, Japan, Sept 1995 : published in Solid State Electronics. Ramirez-Flores G, Navarro-Contreras H, Lastras-Martinez A, Powell RC and Greene J E, . . . . 1974, Phys.Rev.B 50, 8433 Rode D L & Gaskill D K, 1995, Appl.Phys.Lett. 66, 1972 Slack G A, , 1973, J. Phys. Chem. Solids 34, 321 Vaudo R et al, International Workshop on Nitride Semiconductors, Japan, 2000 Vurgaftman I, Meyer J R and Ram-Mohan L R (2001), J.Appl.Phys. 89, 5815 Zopler J C, Hagerott-Crawford M, Pearton S J, Abernathy C R, Vartuli C B, Yuan C & Stall R A, 1996, . . . . J.Electron.Mat. 25, 839 Zopler J C, Wilson R G, Pearton S J & Stall R A, 1996, . . . . Appl. Phys. Lett. 68, 1945 BOOKS < BR>A-B Chen and A Sher, “Semiconductor Alloys – Physics and Materials Engineering” . . . (Plenum, 1995) S Nakumura and G Fasol, “The Blue Laser Diode – GaN Based Light Emitters and Lasers” . . . (Springer, 1997) S J Pearton (Ed.), “GaN and Related Materials” (Gordon and Breach, 1997) The Web-Site of the UK Nitrides Consortium Forthcoming Semiconductor Conferences Properties of Di, Si, Ge Properties of III-V Semiconductors Properties of II-VI Semiconductors Fundamental Constants European & American Physics & Materials Societies Perovskites and Perovskite Solar Cells Return to Top of this Page Return to “SEMICONDUCTORS INFORMATION” Home Page © D.W.Palmer, 1999-2023             Our Privacy Policy

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