Reflective Ni/Ag/Ti/Au electrode with low specific contact resistivity

The specific contact resistivity and reflectivity of Ni/Ag/Ti/Au contact with p-GaN are studied. It is found that the thickness of Ag, anneal time and deposition temperature have a great effect on the performance of Ni/Ag/Ti/Au electrode. Its optical reflectivity is measured by reflectivity spectrophotometer, and its specific contact resistivity is calculated by circular transmission line model. It is observed that the contact reflectivity values of Ni (1 nm)/Ag/Ti (100 nm)/Au (100 nm), when the thickness values of Ag are 25 nm and 50 nm, are low: their values are 68.5% and 82.1% at 450 nm, respectively, and they start to increase with increasing the Ag thickness, then reach their saturated values when Ag thickness is beyond 200 nm. When the anneal time changes from 1 min to 10 min in oxygen atmosphere, the specific contact resistivity decreases at 300 ℃, decreases further and then increases at 400-600 ℃. After annealing at temperatures at 300 ℃ and 400 ℃ in oxygen atmosphere, the contact reflectivity value of Ni/Ag/Ti/Au remains almost unchanged, even when anneal time increases from 1 min to 10 min. However, The contact reflectivity of Ni/Ag/Ti/Au decreases significantly after annealing at a temperature higher than 400 ℃ and it becomes smaller with longer annealing time. After 400 ℃ annealing in oxygen atmosphere for 3 min, the specific contact resistivity reaches 3.6×10-3 Ω·cm2. Additionally, the deposition temperature of Ni/Ag is investigated. It is noticed that the specific contact resistivity decreases and the reflectivity increases with increasing the deposition temperature from room temperature to 120 ℃. The reflectivity rises to 90.1% at 450 nm and the specific contact resistivity reaches 6.4×10-3Ω·cm2 for the Ni/Ag/Ti/Au electrode at a deposition temperature of 120 ℃. However, the effects of improving the electrical and optical characteristics weaken when deposition temperature changes from 120 ℃ to 140 ℃. With a overall consideration, Ni (1 nm)/Ag (200 nm)/Ti (100 nm)/Au (100 nm) is made at a deposition temperature of 120 ℃, and then anneals at 400 ℃ for 3 min in oxygen atmosphere to achieve the optimized electrode. The vertical light emitting diode with this Ni/Ag/Ti/Au electrode is fabricated. Its working voltage is 2.95 V and the light output power is 387.1 mW at 350 mA. The electro-optical conversion efficiency reaches 37.5%.