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Compositional Study of Copper-Germanium Ohmic Contact to n-GaN

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Abstract

400°C alloying of Ge/Cu/Ge films on modestly doped n-GaN results in linear current-voltage (I-V) behavior over a wide range of relative Ge compositions. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Auger depth profiling data suggest that the lowest contact resistivity is due to film compositions near 25 at.% Ge, where the amount of interfacial nonreacted Ge is low. Ohmic contact is likely established by a heavily doped GaN interfacial region influenced by premetallization reactive ion etching (RIE) and later low-temperature alloying, which assists in the formation of donorlike complexes possibly involving GeGa or SiGa. This contact shows exceptionally smooth surface morphology, as revealed by atomic force microscopy (AFM).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Professor P. Berger for the assistance with RTA. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. ECS-0401305) and by the OSU Office of Research Large Interdisciplinary Grant Development Program. The XPS is funded by Grant No. NSF-DMR-0114098. The XRD experiments were carried out in the Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois, which is partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DEFG02-91-ER45439.

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  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Michael L. Schuette & Wu Lu

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  1. Michael L. Schuette
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Correspondence to Wu Lu.

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Schuette, M.L., Lu, W. Compositional Study of Copper-Germanium Ohmic Contact to n-GaN. J. Electron. Mater. 36, 420–425 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-006-0073-5

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