|Publication number||US6914272 B2|
|Application number||US 10/721,440|
|Publication date||Jul 5, 2005|
|Filing date||Nov 24, 2003|
|Priority date||Jun 5, 1998|
|Also published as||EP1221723A2, EP1221723A3, US6657300, US7345323, US20020008243, US20040075097, US20050167693|
|Publication number||10721440, 721440, US 6914272 B2, US 6914272B2, US-B2-6914272, US6914272 B2, US6914272B2|
|Inventors||Werner K. Goetz, Michael D. Camras, Changhua Chen, Gina L. Christenson, R. Scott Kern, Chihping Kuo, Paul Scott Martin, Daniel A. Steigerwald|
|Original Assignee||Lumileds Lighting U.S., Llc|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (25), Referenced by (21), Classifications (19), Legal Events (5)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 09/755,935, filed Jan. 5, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,657,300 now abandoned, which is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09/092,065, filed Jun. 5, 1998. Application Ser. Nos. 09/755,935 and 09/092,065 are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of Invention
The present invention is related to the manufacture of III-V light emitting and laser diodes, particularly towards improving the characteristics of the electrical contact to the p-type portion of the diode.
2. Description of Related Art
Gallium nitride (GaN) compounds have wavelength emissions in the entire visible spectrum as well as part of the UV.
P-type conductivity for GaN is achieved by doping with Mg, which substitutes for gallium in the GaN lattice and acts as an acceptor (MgGa). MgGa introduces a relatively deep acceptor level into the band gap of GaN. As a consequence, only ˜1% of the incorporated Mg acceptors are ionized at room temperature. To illustrate, a Mg concentration ([Mg]) of ˜5e19 cm−3 is needed to achieve a room temperature hole concentration of ˜5e17 cm−3. Further, Mg-doped GaN requires a post-growth activation process to activate the p-type dopants. The post-growth activation process may be, for example, thermal annealing, low-energy electron-beam irradiation, or microwave exposure. For conductivity-optimized Mg-doped GaN layers, [Mg]<5 e19 cm−3, the acceptor concentration (NA) is about equal to the atomic Mg concentration and the resistivity can be around 1 Ωcm or less. These layers may be referred to as “p-type conductive layers”. Increasing the Mg content beyond approximately 5e19 cm−3 does not translate to higher acceptor concentration. Typically, a reduction of NA is observed when the [Mg] exceeds a certain maximum concentration and the layer becomes resistive.
P-type layers of a III-nitride-based light-emitting device are optimized for formation of an Ohmic contact with metals. In some embodiments, a p-type transition layer is formed between a p-type conductivity layer and the metal contact. The p-type transition layer may be a GaN layer with a resisitivity greater than 7 ohm-centimeters, a III-nitride layer, a III-nitride layer with added As or P, or a superlattice with alternating highly doped or elemental dopant sublayers and lightly doped or undoped sublayers.
In some embodiments, the p-type layer is continuous with varying levels of dopant. The concentration of dopant in the region of the p-type layer adjacent to the p-contact is greater than the concentration of dopant in the region of the p-type layer adjacent to the active region. The p-type layer may also have a varying composition, for example of Al or In or both.
P-type transition layer 24 is optimized to form a good Ohmic contact with the metal layer. In the first embodiment, the material of p-type transition layer 24 is a GaN-based layer that contains a higher atomic Mg but a lower acceptor/hole concentration when compared to the p-type conductivity layer 22. In
Exemplary Mg and acceptor concentrations for p-type conductivity layers are shown in region 34. Typically, p-type conductivity layer 22 has a [Mg] less than approximately 5e19 cm−3, NA˜[Mg], and resistivities of about 1 Ωcm or less. In contrast, p-type transition layer 24 is a highly resistive film having a [Mg]>about 5e19 cm−3, and NA<<[Mg]. The high Mg doping may be achieved by adjusting the growth conditions to promote the Mg incorporation into the solid phase, for example by increasing the Mg/Ga ratio in the gas phase. The Mg and acceptor concentrations for embodiments of p-type transition layer 24 are shown in region 32. Region 32 of
The p-type dopants for p-type transition layer 24 are selected from the Group II family which includes Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, Zn, and Cd. A preferred dopant is Mg, which may be co-doped with a Group VIA element, such as O, S, Se, and Te.
In one example of the first embodiment, the thickness of p-type transition layer 24 ranges between about 10 and about 200 nm. As a consequence, the contribution of p-type transition layer 24 to the series resistance is negligible.
The p-type transition layer forms a contact with the metal layer that exhibits a barrier height<about 0.5 eV and almost Ohmic characteristics. If the contact is formed by depositing the metal directly on the p-type conductivity layer the barrier height is>about 1.0 eV. Utilization of contacts with such high barrier height would increase the forward voltage of the diodes and reduce their total power efficiency. In
The barrier height may be further lowered through contact annealing.
Contact annealing reduces the barrier heights for both the transition layer and the p-type conductivity layer. For example, the barrier height for a p-type conductivity layer thermally annealed at 600° C. drops from about 2.7 eV before the contact anneal to about 2.3 eV after the contact anneal, and the barrier height for a p-type transition layer thermally annealed at 600° C. drops from about 0.8 eV before the contact anneal to about 0.4 eV after the contact anneal. However, even after contact annealing, contacts formed with p-type conductivity layers exhibit significantly higher barrier heights than contacts formed with p-type transition layers, e.g. about 2.3 eV for a p-type conductivity layer compared to about 0.4 eV for a p-type transition layer. Thus, though contact annealing does reduce the barrier height for a p-type conductivity layer contact, the effect is not enough to reduce the barrier height to that of a p-type transition layer contact.
The results shown in
In a second embodiment, p-type transition layer 24 is not limited to Mg doped GaN, but is any III-V material. P-type transition layer 24 according to the second embodiment is homogeneously doped. P-type transition layer 24 according to the second embodiment may be, for example, InN, InGaN, AlInGaN, AlN, or AlGaN. When p-type transition layer 24 is InGaN, typically the group III compounds in the crystal are less than about 40% In, but the amount of In can range from 0-100% of the group III compound. When p-type transition layer 24 is AlGaN, typically the group III compounds in the crystal are less than about 20% Al, but the amount of Al can range from 0-100% of the group III compound.
P-type transition layer 24 according to the second embodiment may also be any III-nitride arsenide compound, III-nitride phosphide compound, or III-nitride arsenide phosphide compound, such as GaNAs, GaNP, or GaNAsP. The addition of even a small amount of As or P can significantly lower the bandgap of III-nitride semiconductors.
In the first and second embodiments of the invention, the p-type layers of the device are homogeneously doped. In the third and fourth embodiments, described below, at least one of the p-type layers of the device has a varying concentration of dopant.
In a first example of the third embodiment, transition layer 24 consists of sets 70 of alternating highly doped and lightly doped or undoped layers. Each set of layers 70 has a layer 71 of highly Mg-doped material on the bottom and a layer 72 of undoped or lightly Mg-doped material on the top. The designations “bottom” and “top” are arbitrary, such that either type of sublayer may be adjacent to both the p-type conductive layer and the metal layer. Sublayers 71 and 72 range in thickness from 1 nm to 20 nm. In one example of the third embodiment, each of sublayers 71 and 72 is about 10 nm thick and transition layer 24 includes 10 sets of sublayers such that transition layer 24 is 200 nm thick. Highly doped layer 71 has a Mg concentration ranging from about 1e20 cm−3 to about 5e21 cm−3. Lightly doped layer 72 has a Mg concentration ranging from undoped to about 1e20 cm−3.
In a second example of the third embodiment, rather than a heavily doped layer, layer 71 is a layer of elemental dopant. Thus, in this example, layer 72 may be Mg-doped or undoped GaN or AlInGaN and layer 71 may be elemental Mg.
In examples C and D, both the Al and the In compositions are varied. In example C, as the composition of Al is reduced, the Al is replaced with In. As illustrated in curve 84, the composition of Al is zero near metal contact 26B. Similarly, as illustrated in curve 85, the composition of In is zero near active region 18. Thus, layer 28 varies from AlGaN immediately adjacent to the active region, to AlInGaN in the region between the active region and the metal contact, to InGaN immediately adjacent to the metal contact. In example D, both Al and In are present in all areas of layer 28. As illustrated by curve 86, the Al composition is reduced from the active region to the metal contact, but never reaches zero composition. Similarly, as illustrated by curve 87, the In composition is reduced from the metal contact to the active region, but never reaches zero composition. Layer 28 is thus entirely AlInGaN, but varies from more Al than In near the active region to more In than Al near the metal contact.
While particular embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be made without departing from this invention in its broader aspects and, therefore, the appended claims are to encompass within their scope all such changes and modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of this invention. For example, while the layer is illustrated as having been grown by MOCVD, it may also be fabricated by the techniques of MBE, HVPE, as well as evaporation, sputtering, diffusing, or wafer bonding.
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|U.S. Classification||257/123, 257/103, 313/506, 257/79, 257/102, 257/86|
|International Classification||H01S5/30, H01S5/042, H01S5/323, H01L33/32, H01L33/40|
|Cooperative Classification||H01L33/40, H01S5/0425, H01L33/32, H01L2924/0002, H01S5/0421, H01S5/32341|
|European Classification||H01L33/32, H01L33/40|
|Nov 1, 2005||CC||Certificate of correction|
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