Study of space charge in gallium nitride by the thermal step method

In this paper. we report the electric investigation of thin nitride gallium films by the capacitance voltage technique and the thermal step method (TSM). The C-V analysis at 1 MHz of Au/GaN diode reveals MOS behaviour and shows strong capacitance hysteresis. This may be due to the presence of trapped charge in this structure. The space charge dynamics is studied by thermal step method at different applied voltages. The TS currents are reverted from negative ones to positive ones above inversion threshold of +0.2 V. This change corresponds to charge modulation from accumulation to the inversion one, in good agreement with the C-V characteristics. The stored charge in this sample is related to the nature of gallium nitride and to the manufacturing processes. The results confirm the possibility to apply the TSM for the measurement of the space charge in the semiconductor materials. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.