We report on a comprehensive combined experimental and theoretical study of Curie temperature trends in (Ga,Mn)As ferromagnetic semiconductors. Broad agreement between theoretical expectations and measured data allows us to conclude that ${T}_{c}$ in high-quality metallic samples increases linearly with the number of uncompensated local moments on ${\mathrm{Mn}}_{\mathrm{Ga}}$ acceptors, with no sign of saturation. Room temperature ferromagnetism is expected for a 10% concentration of these local moments. Our magnetotransport and magnetization data are consistent with the picture in which Mn impurities incorporated during growth at interstitial ${\mathrm{Mn}}_{\mathrm{I}}$ positions act as double-donors and compensate neighboring ${\mathrm{Mn}}_{\mathrm{Ga}}$ local moments because of strong near-neighbor ${\mathrm{Mn}}_{\mathrm{Ga}}{\mathrm{Mn}}_{\mathrm{I}}$ antiferromagnetic coupling. These defects can be efficiently removed by post-growth annealing. Our analysis suggests that there is no fundamental obstacle to substitutional ${\mathrm{Mn}}_{\mathrm{Ga}}$ doping in high-quality materials beyond our current maximum level of 6.8%, although this achievement will require further advances in growth condition control. Modest charge compensation does not limit the maximum Curie temperature possible in ferromagnetic semiconductors based on (Ga,Mn)As.

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Prospects for high temperature ferromagnetism in (Ga,Mn)As semiconductors

Native point defects control many aspects of semiconductor behavior. Such defects can be electrically charged, both in the bulk and on the surface. This charging can affect numerous defect properties such as structure, thermal diffusion rates, trapping and recombination rates for electrons and holes, and luminescence quenching rates. Charging also introduces new phenomena such as nonthermally photostimulated diffusion, thereby offering distinctive mechanisms for defect engineering. The present work incorporates the first comprehensive account of semiconductor defect charging, identifying correspondences and contrasts between surfaces and the bulk as well as among semiconductor classes (group IV, groups III–V, and metal oxides). For example, small lattice parameters, close-packed unit cells, and basis atoms with large atomic radii all inhibit the formation of ionized interstitials and antisites. The charged defects that exist in III–V and oxide semiconductors can be predicted with surprising accuracy from the chemical potential and oxygen partial pressure of the ambient. The symmetry-lowering relaxations, formation energies, and diffusion mechanisms of bulk and surface defect structures often depend strongly on charge state with similar qualitative behavior, although for a given material surface defects do not typically take on the same configurations or range of stable charge states as their counterparts in the bulk.

Charged point defects in semiconductors

A brief history of defect formation, segregation, faceting, and twinning in melt-grown semiconductors

Recent progress of crystal growth modeling and growth control

High-quality GaMnAs films grown with arsenic dimers

A detailed analysis of the role of charged native point defects in controlling the solubility of electrically active dopants in gallium arsenide is presented. The key roles of (a) positively charged arsenic vacancies (VAs+) in determining the doping range over which the solubility curve is linear and (b) multiply negative charged gallium vacancies (VGam−) determining annealing and diffusion behavior in n+ material are demonstrated. An equilibrium thermodynamic model based on these concepts is shown to accurately describe the doping behavior of Te, Zn, Sn, Ge, Si, and C and the formation and annealing of the deep level denoted EL2 (assumed to be the arsenic antisite defect AsGa) in melt- and solution-grown crystals. The model provides a much more comprehensive and accurate description of dopant solubility than the widely cited Schottky barrier model of bulk nonequilibrium dopant incorporation. It is unambiguously shown that partial autocompensation of donor dopants by the donor–gallium vacancy acceptor com...

D. T. J. Hurle

Papers

A comprehensive thermodynamic analysis of native point defect and dopant solubilities in gallium arsenide