Impurity diffusion in ion implanted AlN layers on sapphire substrates by thermal annealing

• Main Authors: Okumura, Hironori (Author), Watanabe, Yasuhiro (Author), Shibata, Tomohiko (Author), Yoshizawa, Kohei (Author), Uedono, Akira (Author), Tokunaga, Hiroki (Author), Koseki, Shuuichi (Author), Arimura, Tadanobu (Author), Suihkonen, Sami (Author), Palacios, Tomás (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IOP Publishing, 2022-07-18T18:00:00Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>We report on impurity diffusion in ion implanted AlN layers after thermal annealing. Silicon, tin, germanium, and magnesium ions were implanted into single-crystal Al-polar AlN layers grown on sapphire substrates. By annealing at 1600 °C, silicon and magnesium atoms were diffused in the AlN layer, while less change was observed in the distribution of germanium atoms. Silicon implantation introduced vacancy-related defects. By annealing at temperatures over 1300 °C, the vacancy-related defects were reduced, while oxygen atoms were diffused from the substrate due to sapphire decomposition. We reproducibly achieved silicon-implanted AlN layers with electrical conductance by controlling the annealing temperature and distribution of silicon and oxygen concentrations.</jats:p>