Avyd Devices proposes to develop a technology to prepare high conductivity p-type GaN crystals with an extremely novel and innovative approach. The approach entails the creation of shallow acceptor levels via coulombic pairing of a double acceptor A-- with a single donor D+ with the resulting pair (A-- D+)- acting as a single acceptor with an energy level shallower than that of either A- or A-- in their unpaired state. Specifically, GaN crystals will be simultaneously doped with an element from Group I and an element from Group VI and then the crystals will be annealed under well controlled thermodynamic conditions which would promote the coulombic association of the Group I element occupying gallium lattice sites, acting as a double acceptor, AGa--, with the Group VI element occupying nitrogen lattice sites, acting as a single donor, DN+. The resulting pair, (AGa-- DN+)- would act as a single acceptor with an expected energy level much closer to the valence band edge than that of either AGa- or AGa-- in their unpaired state. Phase I research will focus on demonstrating the feasibility of coulombic pairing as an approach to produce high conductivity p-type GaN. At the end of Phase II of the program, Avyd Devices expects to reproducibly produce high conductivity p-type GaN and high power blue LEDs for commercial applications. The technology can also be extended to Ga1-x Alx N alloys to produce solar blind detectors.
