In situ optical reflectivity measurements are employed to monitor the GaN epilayer growth process above a lowtemperature GaN buffer layer on a c-plane sapphire substrate by metalorganic chemical vapour deposition. It is found that the lateral growth of the GaN islands and their coalescence are promoted in the initial growth stage if optimized nitridation time and temperature are selected when the substrate is pre-exposed to ammonia. As confirmed by atomic force microscopy observations, the quality of the CaN epilayers is closely dependent on the surface morphology of the nitridated buffer layer, especially grain size and nucleation density.
The light extraction efficiencies have been calculated for various InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well nanostructure light-emitting diodes including nanopillar, nanorough of P-CaN surface, coreshell and nano-interlayer structure. From the calculated results we can see that the light extraction efficiency is remarkably improved in the nanostructures, especially those with an InGaN or AlCaN nano-interlayer. With a 420-nm luminescence wavelength, the light extraction efficiency can reach as high as 65% for the InGaN or AlGaN nano-interlayer structure with appropriate In or Al content while only 26% for the planar structure.
The leakage current of GaN Schottky barrier ultraviolet photodetectors is investigated. It is found that the photodetectors adopting undoped GaN instead of lightly Si-doped GaN as an active layer show a much lower leakage current even when they have a higher dislocation density. It is also found that the density of Ca vacancies in undoped GaN is much lower than in Si-doped GaN. The Ga vacancies may enhance tunneling and reduce effective Schottky barrier height, leading to an increase of leakage current. It suggests that when undoped GaN is used as the active layer, it is necessary to reduce the leakage current of GaN Schottky barrier ultraviolet photodetector.
