Substrate misorientation induced strong increase in the hole concentration in Mg doped GaN grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy

We demonstrate that relatively small GaN substrate misorientation can strongly change hole carrier concentration in Mg doped GaN layers grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. In this work intentionally misoriented GaN substrates (up to $2°$ with respect to ideal $⟨0001⟩$ plane) were employed. An increase in the hole carrier concentration to the level above $1018cm−3$ and a decrease in GaN:Mg resistivity below $1Ωcm$ were achieved. Using secondary ion mass spectroscopy we found that Mg incorporation does not change with varying misorientation angle. This finding suggests that the compensation rate, i.e., a decrease in unintentional donor density, is responsible for the observed increase in the hole concentration. Analysis of the temperature dependence of electrical transport confirms this interpretation.