The Roles of Threading Dislocations on Electrical Properties of AlGaN/GaN Heterostructure Grown by MBE

The role played by different types of threading dislocations (TDs) on the electrical properties of AlGaN/GaN heterostructure grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) was investigated. Samples with different defect structures and densities were prepared and measurements were taken from the same sample to study the correlative behavior of various TDs. From the Hall measurement, the electron mobility in two-dimensional electron gas channel was mainly controlled by the edge dislocation, which has a dominant amount in the material. The edge TDs acted as Coulomb scattering centers inside the channel and reduces the carrier mobility and increased its resistance. Screw TDs played a much significant role than edge TDs in determining the reverse-bias leakage current of Schottky barrier diodes. Leakage current is affected slightly by the reduction of free carrier density in the channel for samples with a higher edge TD density, but screw TD, which acted as the current leakage path, was more deleterious to the reverse-bias leakage current of AlGaN/GaN structure.