Optical activation of ion implanted and annealed GaN

Ion implantation and the associated annealing was investigated using luminescence and absorption measurements to demonstrate the efficacy of implantation for introducing various classes of dopants into GaN. A wide range of implantation and annealing studies were performed with several dopant species (Zn, Nd, Er, Ar). Room temperature ion implantation was performed on MOCVD grown GaN samples at energies between 200 and 400 keV with doses ranging from 1 x 10(13) to 1 x 10(15) cm(-2). Conventional furnace annealing in flowing NH3 or N-2 resulted in good recovery of implantation damage at an annealing temperature of 1000 degrees C for 90 min. However, surface degradation became evident for annealing in an NH3 environment at temperatures above 1000 degrees C. Low temperature photoluminescence showed that the optical activation of the Zn, and the rare earth elements, Er and Nd, was optimum in the NH3 annealing environment at 1000 degrees C.