Electron mobilities, Hall factors, and scattering processes of n-type GaN epilayers studied by infrared reflection and Hall measurements

We have studied the drift and Hall mobilities of electrons in metal-organic chemical-vapor-deposited wurtzite GaN thin films on sapphire substrate by infrared (IR) reflection and Hall measurements. By analyzing the Hall factor (the ratio between the drift mobility obtained from IR reflection spectra and the Hall mobility from the Hall measurements), it has been concluded that the electron mobility in GaN epilayer is determined by the ionized impurity when the electron concentration is low. At a high carrier concentration of 3.2×10¹⁸ cm^-3, electronic states of more than 70 meV become populated taking into account the thermal excitation, so that the optical-phonon-scattering process becomes activated (the optical-phonon energy is 69.43 meV obtained from IR reflection measurements). Thus, in highly doped wurtzite GaN epilayers, ionized-impurity- and optical-phonon-scattering processes jointly determine the carrier transport properties.