Progress in efficient doping of Al-rich AlGaN
Jiaming Wang, Fujun Xu, Lisheng Zhang, Jing Lang, Xuzhou Fang, Ziyao Zhang, Xueqi Guo, Ji Chen, Chengzhi Ji, Fuyun Tan, Xuelin Yang, Xiangning Kang, Zhixin Qin, Ning Tang, Xinqiang Wang, Weikun Ge, Bo Shen
Abstract
Abstract The development of semiconductors is always accompanied by the progress in controllable doping techniques. Taking AlGaN-based ultraviolet (UV) emitters as an example, despite a peak wall-plug efficiency of 15.3% at the wavelength of 275 nm, there is still a huge gap in comparison with GaN-based visible light-emitting diodes (LEDs), mainly attributed to the inefficient doping of AlGaN with increase of the Al composition. First, p-doping of Al-rich AlGaN is a long-standing challenge and the low hole concentration seriously restricts the carrier injection efficiency. Although p-GaN cladding layers are widely adopted as a compromise, the high injection barrier of holes as well as the inevitable loss of light extraction cannot be neglected. While in terms of n-doping the main issue is the degradation of the electrical property when the Al composition exceeds 80%, resulting in a low electrical efficiency in sub-250 nm UV-LEDs. This review summarizes the recent advances and outlines the major challenges in the efficient doping of Al-rich AlGaN, meanwhile the corresponding approaches pursued to overcome the doping issues are discussed in detail.