Effect of irradiation temperature and ion flux on electrical isolation of GaN

We study the evolution of sheet resistance of n-type GaN epilayers irradiated with MeV ¹H and ¹²C ions. Results show that both implantation temperature (varied from 77 up to 423 K) and ion beam flux affect the process of electrical isolation in the case of irradiation with ¹²C ions. This behavior is consistent with significant dynamic annealing occurring in GaN during MeV light-ion bombardment, which suggests a scenario where the centers responsible for electrical isolation are defect clusters or anti-site-related defects. Dynamic annealing causes simple ion-beam-generated Frenkel pairs to annihilate (or cluster) during irradiation at liquid nitrogen temperature and above. These beam-flux and irradiation-temperature effects are not observed during bombardment with lighter ¹H ions, which produce very dilute collision cascades. A qualitative model is proposed to explain temperature and flux effects in GaN in the MeV light-ion bombardment regime used for electrical isolation.