We performed an in‐situ analysis of the interaction of water with clean 2×2 reconstructed GaN(0001) surfaces grown by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy. The as‐grown surfaces were exposed to molecular water by backfilling. Photoemission spectra reveal an extremely high reactivity and dissociative adsorption with an oxygen sticking coefficient of 0.3 and a saturation coverage of approximately 1 ML. Core level spectra of the O1s state show three individual oxygen components with different temporal behavior. Furthermore, the initial reconstruction quickly vanishes and surface states in the valence band of the as‐grown surface are removed during the exposure of the first few Langmuirs. For higher exposures, two oxygen‐related states appear. The initial upward band bending of 0.4 eV for the as‐grown surface is effectively reduced during oxidation resulting in flat band conditions. (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Gallium nitride thin films were grown on silicon carbide (0001) by plasma‐assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PAMBE). The samples were cooled down in nitrogen plasma and characterized in situ by reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED), photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS/UPS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealing stoichiometric and smooth GaN films virtually free of contaminations. We present valence band data obtained by UPS with strong emission from surface states inside the fundamental band gap. These states and the observed 2 × 2 surface reconstruction are highly sensitive towards residual molecules. Once these surface states have disappeared the original state could not be recovered by surface preparation methods underlining the necessity of in situ investigations on as‐grown surfaces. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Diffusion of the p-type dopant Mg in GaN and AlxGa1−xN which is accompanied by segregation and affected by transient effects in metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy reactors is investigated. We have grown 110 nm thick Mg doped GaN and Al0.1Ga0.9N layers on top of undoped GaN and Al0.1Ga0.9N layers, respectively, in a temperature range between 925 °C and 1050 °C where we placed special emphasis on the lower temperature limit without diffusion to allow separation of Mg transients, diffusion, and segregation. Hereby, AlxGa1−xN layers enable monitoring of the resolution limit by secondary ion mass spectrometry analyses for the respective samples; therefore, thin AlxGa1−xN marker layers are incorporated in the thick GaN layers. We found an upper limit of 1.25 × 1019 cm−3 for diffusing Mg atoms in both sample types. Owing to the marked influence of Mg segregation in Al0.1Ga0.9N, diffusion is only seen by using a GaN cap on top of the Al0.1Ga0.9N layer sequence. Diffusion in Al0.1Ga0.9N is shown to be increased by about 25%−30% compared to GaN. Post growth annealing experiments under conditions equivalent to those used for growth of the Mg doped samples showed negligible diffusion. Comparing the results to well established findings on other doped III-V compounds, diffusion is explained by an interstitial-substitutional mechanism with a diffusion coefficient, which is concentration dependent. Analysis of the temperature dependent diffusivity revealed an activation energy of 5.0 eV for GaN:Mg and 5.2 eV for Al0.1Ga0.9N:Mg.

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