Proton irradiation effects on p- and n-type GaN

Okada, Hiroshi*; Okada, Yuki*; Sekiguchi, Hiroto*; Wakahara, Akihiro*; Sato, Shinichiro; Oshima, Takeshi

To understand a degradation mechanism of electronic devices in harsh environment, investigation of irradiation damages not only by characterizing whole device, but also by charactrizing each part of the device is important. In this study, proton irradiation effects on p- and n-type GaN on LED structure were investigated by characterizing two-terminal resistances of p- and n-GaN layers on LEDstructure before and after 380 keV proton fluence up to 1 10cm. The resistance of p-GaN after irradiation increased around millionfold while the increase was around one tenth in n-GaN. The result suggests that proton irradiation hardness of GaN-based bipolar device is governed by the hole traps.