Investigation of carbon-related complexes in highly C-doped GaN grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy

Abstract We investigated the C-related complexes in highly C-doped GaN by electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy, Fourier transform IR spectroscopy (FTIR), and minority carrier transient spectroscopy (MCTS) measurements. In the ESR spectra, two resonances with g values of 2.02 and 2.04 were found to be assigned by (0/−) deep acceptor and (+/0) charge transition levels of carbon substituting for nitrogen site (C N ). In the FTIR spectra, two local vibrational modes positioned at 1679 and 1718 cm −1 were confirmed to be associated with tri-carbon complexes of C N –C Ga –C N (basal) and C N –C Ga –C N (axial), respectively. In the MCTS spectra, we observed the hole trap level of E v + 0.25 ± 0.1 eV associated with the tri-carbon complexes, which are the dominant C-related defects, suggesting that these complexes affect the electronic properties in the highly C-doped GaN.