Increasing the mobility and power-electronics figure of merit of AlGaN with atomically thin AlN/GaN digital-alloy superlattices

Pant, Nick; Lee, Woncheol; Sanders, Nocona; Kioupakis, Emmanouil

doi:10.1063/5.0097963

Title: Increasing the mobility and power-electronics figure of merit of AlGaN with atomically thin AlN/GaN digital-alloy superlattices

Journal Article · Wed Jul 20 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0097963· OSTI ID:1979116

^[1]; Lee, Woncheol ^[1]; Sanders, Nocona ^[1];

^[1]

Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)

Alloy scattering in random AlGaN alloys drastically reduces the electron mobility and, therefore, the power-electronics figure of merit. As a result, Al compositions greater than 75% are required to obtain even a twofold increase in the Baliga figure of merit compared to GaN. However, beyond approximately 80% Al composition, donors in AlGaN undergo the DX transition, which makes impurity doping increasingly more difficult. Moreover, the contact resistance increases exponentially with the increase in Al content, and integration with dielectrics becomes difficult due to the upward shift of the conduction band. Atomically thin superlattices of AlN and GaN, also known as digital alloys, are known to grow experimentally under appropriate growth conditions. These chemically ordered nanostructures could offer significantly enhanced figure of merit compared to their random alloy counterparts due to the absence of alloy scattering, as well as better integration with contact metals and dielectrics. In this work, we investigate the electronic structure and phonon-limited electron mobility of atomically thin AlN/GaN digital-alloy superlattices using first-principles calculations based on density-functional and many-body perturbation theory. The bandgap of the atomically thin superlattices reaches 4.8 eV, and the in-plane (out-of-plane) mobility is 369 (452) cm² V^-1s^-1. Using the modified Baliga figure of merit that accounts for the dopant ionization energy, here we demonstrate that atomically thin AlN/GaN superlattices with a monolayer sublattice periodicity have the highest modified Baliga figure of merit among several technologically relevant ultra-wide bandgap materials, including random AlGaN, β-Ga₂O₃, cBN, and diamond.

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Research Organization:: Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities (SUF); Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0020129; AC02-05CH11231; DEAC0205CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1979116

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1876942

Journal Information:: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 3; ISSN 0003-6951

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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