Heterovalent Ternary Nitride Semiconductors and Mixed Ternary-Binary Heterostructures
There is growing interest in the much larger, but much less well-studied, family of ternary nitride semiconductors that include, for example, zinc germanium nitride and zinc tin nitride, formed by replacing the group III binary element with equal proportions of group II and group IV elements. The increased complexity of the ternary nitrides, and the greater number of materials and combinations, is expected to lead to new materials properties and more flexibility in their design. This project will accelerate research on this new family of materials by combining efforts in theoretical calculations and modeling of devices and properties with synthesis and characterization focused on an important subset of these materials. The research will focus on developing growth and doping methods for ZnGeN2 and ZnGeN2-GaN mixed ternary-binary heterostructures by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The focus additionally will take advantage of the theoretically predicted large band offset between the two materials, which have similar band gaps in the near-ultraviolet, in the design and synthesis of the interesting heterostructure and alloy systems that result from this situation. The theoretical and experimental results, combined with the development of a network, based upon the publicly accessible database website for research groups working in this area, will lay the foundation for expanding research efforts on this large family of materials. Dissemination of new and archived results via an interactive website-accessed database available freely to the community will foster a growing network among research groups that will accelerate progress toward understanding and controlling the properties of these materials and developing new applications for them.
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