Low-resistance Ta/Ti Ohmic contacts for <i>p</i>-type GaN

Abstract

Although extensive efforts have continued to develop Ohmic contacts for p-type GaN, which have specific contact resistance (ρc) lower than that (ρc∼10−2 Ω cm2) of conventional Ni/Au contacts, to the best of our knowledge no breakthrough has been reported in open literature. We demonstrated that bilayered Ta/Ti contacts have a ρc value of around 3×10−5 Ω cm2 for p-type GaN with a hole concentration of 7×1017 cm−3. This contact has resistance low enough to manufacture blue laser diodes, but deterioration of the ρc value during room-temperature storage is the key issue.