Implant isolation of plasma-assisted MBE grown GaInAsN for opto-telecommunication applications

The material system GaInAsN is considered to be one of the key materials for next generation telecommunication applications providing high data transmission and lower power consumption. The strong dependence of the band gap on the nitrogen content has made this material important for a variety of applications. We report on the effects of ion implantation on the achieved electrical isolation in GaInAsN layers. GaInAsN was grown using either a direct nitrogen beam or dispersive nitrogen radicals by a RF activated nitrogen source. Proton and iron implants were performed at RT and 77 K, respectively in order to effectively isolate the as-grown silicon (n-type) GaInAsN layers. Results show that the sheet resistance of n-type layers can be increased by about four and five orders of magnitude by proton and iron implantation, respectively. The study of annealing temperature dependence of sheet resistivity in proton-isolated samples shows that the electrical isolation can be preserved up to 450 °C. The thermally stable high resistivity region persists up to 600 °C when the implantation is performed with iron at 77 K. These results are novel and have ramifications for device engineers.