• Pookpanratana, S.; France, R.; Blum, M.; Bell, A.; Bär, M.; Weinhardt, L.; Zhang, Y.; Hofmann, T.; Fuchs, O.; Yang, W.; Denlinger, J.D., Mulcahy, S.; Moustakas, T.D.; Heske C.: Chemical structure of vanadium-based contact formation on n-AlN. Journal of Applied Physics 108 (2010), p. 024906/1-6

10.1063/1.3456060

Abstract:
We have investigated the chemical interaction between a Au/V/Al/V layer structure and n-type AlN epilayers using soft x-ray photoemission, x-ray emission spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy. To understand the complex processes involved in this multicomponent system, we have studied the interface before and after a rapid thermal annealing step. We find the formation of a number of chemical phases at the interface, including VN, metallic vanadium, aluminum oxide, and metallic gold. An interaction mechanism for metal contact formation on the entire n-(Al,Ga )N system is proposed.