Polarization-induced hole doping in wide-band-gap uniaxial semiconductor heterostructures.
Impurity-based p-type doping in wide-band-gap semiconductors is inefficient at room temperature for applications such as lasers because the positive-charge carriers (holes) have a large thermal activation energy. We demonstrate high-efficiency p-type doping by ionizing acceptor dopants using the built-in electronic polarization in bulk uniaxial semiconductor crystals. Because the mobile hole gases are field-ionized, they are robust to thermal freezeout effects and lead to major improvements in p-type electrical conductivity. The new doping technique results in improved optical emission efficiency in prototype ultraviolet light-emitting-diode structures. Polarization-induced doping provides an attractive solution to both p- and n-type doping problems in wide-band-gap semiconductors and offers an unconventional path for the development of solid-state deep-ultraviolet optoelectronic devices and wide-band-gap bipolar electronic devices of the future.
Simon
John
J
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, 275 Fitzpatrick Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
Protasenko
Vladimir
V
Lian
Chuanxin
C
Xing
Huili
H
Jena
Debdeep
D