Iron as a source of efficient Shockley-Read-Hall recombination in GaN

Author(s)
Darshana Wickramaratne, Jimmy-Xuan Shen, Cyrus E. Dreyer, Manuel Engel, Martijn Marsman, Georg Kresse, Saulius Marcinkevicius, Audrius Alkauskas, Chris G. Van de Walle
Abstract

Transition metal impurities are known to adversely affect the efficiency of electronic and optoelectronic devices by introducing midgap defect levels that can act as efficient Shockley-Read-Hall centers. Iron impurities in GaN do not follow this pattern: their defect level is close to the conduction band and hence far from midgap. Using hybrid functional first-principles calculations, we uncover the electronic properties of Fe and we demonstrate that its high efficiency as a nonradiative center is due to a recombination cycle involving excited states. Unintentional incorporation of iron impurities at modest concentrations (10(15) cm(-3)) leads to nanosecond nonradiative recombination lifetimes, which can be detrimental for the efficiency of electronic and optoelectronic devices.

Organisation(s)
Computational Materials Physics
External organisation(s)
University of California, Santa Barbara, Rutgers University, KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, Center for Physical Sciences and Technology, Universität Wien
Journal
Applied Physics Letters
Volume
109
No. of pages
4
ISSN
0003-6951
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4964831
Publication date
10-2016
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103025 Quantum mechanics, 103036 Theoretical physics, 103015 Condensed matter, 103009 Solid state physics
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/iron-as-a-source-of-efficient-shockleyreadhall-recombination-in-gan(e6a402ae-e481-46ee-aff9-96917a61df3b).html