substance: gallium nitride (GaN)

property: electrical and thermal conductivity, electron concentration

Undoped GaN is normally n-type conducting. Due to compensation films with n 51016 cm3 turn to be semiinsulating. Carrier concentrations and mobilities in undoped films depend on the deposition technique used, on
the substrate materials [93L] and whether or not low temperature thin nucleation layers (AlN, GaN, ZnO) are
used [91N, 88A]. Carrier concentrations in undoped films might vary from 51019 cm3 to 51016 cm3 by
unintentional incorporation of extrinsic impurities, mainly silicon and oxygen.
The role of nitrogen vacancies as the source of n-type conduction is discussed controversially [94N, 95B].
Experimental results concerning the different types of impurity conduction are reported in [94G, 93W, 95R,
92N, 96D, 96Y, 96G, 96M, 97L, 95G, 94H, 97O].
The mobility depends on different standard scattering mechanisms: piezoelectric acoustic phonon scattering,
acoustic deformation potential scattering, ionized impurity scattering, polar mode optical phonon scattering, and
additional scattering arising from short range potential of native defects at very high electron concentrations.
Electron mobilities as a function of temperature for carrier concentrations of 1016, 1017, and 1018 cm3 with the
compensation ratio na/nd as a calculation parameter are presented in [94C] in comparison with experimental Hall
effect values (H).
All following data refer to -GaN.
conductivity

6...12 1 cm1

T = 300 K

purest material, n 1017cm3,

undoped layers grown by vapor
phase technique on sapphire
high carrier concentration,
n = 1019...1020 cm3,
undoped and doped layers

T = 300 K

thick layers (> 100 um) grown by

vapor phase technique on sapphire,
undoped

72I,
73I1,
78C
10...103 1 cm1
69M,
73I2,
75K,
76S,
77G
For a discussion of earlier measurements, see [73I1]. Semi-insulating material has been achieved by Zn-doping
[78C] and Mg-doping [76S], see also Fig. 1. For temperature dependence of resistivity, see Fig. 2.
electron concentration
n

1...21017 cm3

1019...1020 cm3

T = 300 K

thin layers ( 100 m) grown

by the same way,
undoped and doped (Zn, Mg)

72I,
73I1,
78C
69M,
73I1,
75K,
76S,
77G

For temperature dependence, see Figs. 3, 4, for dependence on layer thickness, see Fig. 5.
thermal conductivity

1.3 W/cm K

T = 300 K

n = 31017 cm3; see Fig. 6

77S

References:
63A
69M
72I
73I1
73I2
75K

75R
76S
76S
77G
77S
78C
88A
91N
92N
93L
93W
94C
94G
94H
94N
95B
95G
95R
96D
96G
96M
96Y
97L
97O

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Fig. 1.
GaN. Resistivity vs. ratio of Mg to Ga concentration. Experimental points for different growing conditions and
different orientation of the sapphire substrate [76S].

Fig. 2.
GaN. Resistivity of several undoped (1...7) and a Zn-doped (8) sample vs. reciprocal temperature [73I2].

Fig. 3.
GaN. Electron concentration vs. reciprocal temperature below room temperature for the samples of Fig. 2 [73I2].

Fig. 4.
GaN. Electron concentration of samples 2 and 4 of Fig. 2 vs. reciprocal temperature above 100 K. Solid lines:
concentrations calculated by a two-independent-donor model [73I2].

Fig. 5.
GaN. Electron concentration vs. layer thickness [73I2].

Fig. 6.
GaN. Thermal conductivity along the c-axis vs. temperature [77S].