Activation of Hydrogen-Passivated Mg in GaN-Based Light Emitting Diode Annealing with Minority-Carrier Injection

We discuss an issue on the activation of p-GaN material under different annealing conditions and study the mechanism for the p-GaN activation. Under annealing in nitrogen, it is found that hydrogen cannot be completely removed from p-GaN. The experiments also indicate that rudimental hydrogen can exist stably in a certain state where hydrogen does not passivate the Mg acceptor in the sample annealing under bias. However, making additional annealing in nitrogen, we find that the steady state hydrogen can be decomposed and the Mg–H complex could generate again. Hydrogen remaining in the layer seems to play a major role in this reversible phenomenon.