Improved Mobilities and resistivities in modulation-doped p-type AlGaN/GaN superlattices

P-type AlGaN/GaN superlattice structures have demonstrated higher acceptor activation due to a modulated valence band resulting from the superlattice as well as spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization fields. The polarization effects are due to the wurtzite structure of AlGaN and the strain present in AlxGa1-xN/GaN heterostructures. Variable temperature Hall effect studies of Mg doped Al0.20Ga0.80N/GaN superlattices reveal an improvement in resistivity and mobility for modulation-doped structures versus uniformly doped structures. Very low resistivities less than 0.1 Omega cm and hole mobilities similar to 36 cm(2)/V s are demonstrated. This improvement is attributed to a reduction of neutral and ionized impurity scattering for the two-dimensional hole gas present in the GaN layers of the modulation-doped superlattice. The improvement is greatest at temperatures below - 150 K. The doped regions of the superlattices have Mg concentrations of similar to 10(19) cm(-3), Two modulation-doped samples were grown by MBE: a standard scheme with dopants only in the AlGaN barriers, and a shifted scheme with dopants concentrated near the AlGaN/GaN interfaces. The standard sample has mobilities of 8.9 and 36 cm(2)/V s at 300 and 90 K, respectively. Resistivities of the standard sample are 0.21 and 0.068 Omega cm at 300 and 90 K, respectively. Carrier concentrations for this sample are 3.4 and 2.5 x 10(18) cm(-3) at 300 and 90 K, respectively. Capacitance-voltage profiling on the samples shows a clear indication of a two-dimensional hole gas as well as the periodicity of the superlattice.