title: Polarization-induced hole doping in wide-band-gap uniaxial semiconductor heterostructures.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, 275 Fitzpatrick Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Simon
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Protasenko
authors.forename: Chuanxin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lian
authors.forename: Huili
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xing
authors.forename: Debdeep
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jena