Effects of hole localization on limiting p-type conductivity in oxide and nitride semiconductors
- Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-5050 (United States)
We examine how hole localization limits the effectiveness of substitutional acceptors in oxide and nitride semiconductors and explain why p-type doping of these materials has proven so difficult. Using hybrid density functional calculations, we find that anion-site substitutional impurities in AlN, GaN, InN, and ZnO lead to atomic-like states that localize on the impurity atom itself. Substitution with cation-site impurities, on the other hand, triggers the formation of polarons that become trapped on nearest-neighbor anions, generally leading to large ionization energies for these acceptors. Unlike shallow effective-mass acceptors, these two types of deep acceptors couple strongly with the lattice, significantly affecting the optical properties and severely limiting prospects for achieving p-type conductivity in these wide-band-gap materials.
- OSTI ID:
- 22271095
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 115, Issue 1; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-8979
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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