Progress in efficient doping of Al-rich AlGaN

Abstract

The development of semiconductors is always accompanied by the progress in controllable doping techniques. Taking AlGaN-based ultraviolet (UV) emitters as an example, despite a peak wall-plug efficiency of 15.3% at the wavelength of 275 nm, there is still a huge gap in comparison with GaN-based visible light-emitting diodes (LEDs), mainly attributed to the inefficient doping of AlGaN with increase of the Al composition. First, p-doping of Al-rich AlGaN is a long-standing challenge and the low hole concentration seriously restricts the carrier injection efficiency. Although p-GaN cladding layers are widely adopted as a compromise, the high injection barrier of holes as well as the inevitable loss of light extraction cannot be neglected. While in terms of n-doping the main issue is the degradation of the electrical property when the Al composition exceeds 80%, resulting in a low electrical efficiency in sub-250 nm UV-LEDs. This review summarizes the recent advances and outlines the major challenges in the efficient doping of Al-rich AlGaN, meanwhile the corresponding approaches pursued to overcome the doping issues are discussed in detail.