Characterization of G-R noise in GaN films grown by RF-MBE on intermediate-temperature buffer layers

We report detailed investigations of generation-recombination G-R) noise in GaN films grown by rf-plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy on intermediate-temperature buffer layer (ITBL) in addition to conventional low-temperature buffer layer. To characterize the film quality affected by the use of ITBL, low-frequency noise measurements were performed. The voltage noise power spectra show a strong dependence on the thickness of the ITBL. A model has been presented to explain the observed G-R noise, which stipulates that the phenomenon arises from the thermally activated trapping and detrapping of carriers by traps. The process leads to the correlated fluctuations in both the carrier number and the coulombic scattering rate. Detailed numerical evaluation shows that number fluctuation dominates in our samples. The calculated trap densities show that the use of ITBL can effectively reduce defect density by over an order of magnitude.