title: GdN nanoisland-based GaN tunnel junctions.
abstract: Tunnel junctions could have a great impact on gallium nitride and aluminum nitride-based devices such as light-emitting diodes and lasers by overcoming critical challenges related to hole injection and p-contacts. This paper demonstrates the use of GdN nanoislands to enhance interband tunneling and hole injection into GaN p-n junctions by several orders of magnitude, resulting in low tunnel junction specific resistivity (1.3 × 10(-3) Ω-cm(2)) compared to the previous results in wide band gap semiconductors. Tunnel injection of holes was confirmed by low-temperature operation of GaN p-n junction with a tunneling contact layer, and strong electroluminescence down to 20 K. The low tunnel junction resistance combined with low optical absorption loss in GdN is very promising for incorporation in GaN-based light emitters.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA.
authors.forename: Sriram
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Krishnamoorthy
authors.forename: Thomas F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Kent
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Pil Sung
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Roberto C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Myers
authors.forename: Siddharth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rajan