Abrupt <i>p</i>-type doping profile of carbon atomic layer doped GaAs grown by flow-rate modulation epitaxy

Abstract

Atomic layer doping of p-type carbon impurity in GaAs was demonstrated using flow-rate modulation epitaxy. An extremely narrow capacitance-voltage profile with 5.8 nm full width at half-maximum is observed in the wafer with a sheet hole density of 9.5×1011 cm−2. Atomic layer doping of carbon was performed by supplying trimethylgallium or trimethylaluminium instead of triethylgallium. It was found that the sheet hole density does not change before and after annealing for 1 h at 800 °C indicating that the carbon is a very stable impurity in GaAs. The diffusion coefficient of carbon is estimated to be 2×10−16 cm−2/s at 800 °C. This is the lowest value ever reported for p-type impurities.