Uranium Doped Gallium Nitride Epitaxial Thin Films

Abstract

Gallium nitride (GaN) is near ubiquitous in modern day technologies, forming the backbone of solid-state lighting and high-power electronics. Engineering the physical properties of GaN has been investigated to some degree by the incorporation or doping of most of the elements of the periodic table, but the actinides remain unexplored. Molecular beam epitaxy is used to demonstrate uranium doping of GaN single crystals. High structural quality of the host matrix is maintained despite partial elemental segregation of the uranium dopant into 1D structures at the levels presented here. Electronic transport measurements reveal relatively high conductivity, which persists down to cryogenic temperature and is characterized by the formation of narrow gaps in the electronic band structures very close to the Fermi level. Photoluminescence measurements reveal that the U-doped GaN exhibits optical behavior similar to that of the GaN substrate. The addition of actinide materials to a non-centrosymmetric, optically active, radiation-hard, and electronically tunable host matrix opens a world of possibilities for investigating and leveraging elements with high electron correlations in the pursuit of novel devices.