A donorlike deep level defect in Al0.12Ga0.88N characterized by capacitance transient spectroscopies

Si-doped, n-type heteroepitaxial layers of Al0.12Ga0.88N grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition on SiC substrates were characterized by capacitance transient spectroscopies. Conventional deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) reveals the presence of a dominant deep level with an activation energy for electron emission to the conduction band of (0.61±0.02) eV. The activation energy of this deep level displays a pronounced field dependence as determined from double-correlation DLTS (DDLTS), which is indicative of a deep donor level in n-type semiconductors. A deep level is observed by optical-DLTS (O-DLTS) with a threshold energy for electron photoemission to the conduction band of 0.77 eV, which appears to be of identical origin as the dominant deep level detected by DLTS. Two additional deep levels are detected with O-DLTS in the upper half of the band gap of our Al0.12Ga0.88N sample with threshold energies of 0.83 and 1.01 eV.