Highly low resistance and transparent Ni/ZnO ohmic contacts to p -type GaN

We report on a promising Ni (5 nm)/Al-doped ZnO (AZO) (450 nm) metallization scheme for low resistance and transparent ohmic contacts to p-GaN (5×1017 cm−3). It is shown that the as-deposited Ni/AZO contact shows a nonohmic characteristic due to the insulating nature of the as-deposited AZO. However, annealing the contacts at 450 and 550 °C for 2 min in air ambient results in linear current–voltage characteristics, giving a specific contact resistance of 1.01×10−5 and 8.46×10−6 Ω cm2, respectively. It is further shown that annealing the contact at 550 °C for 5 min produces a specific contact resistance of 6.23×10−6 Ω cm2. The light transmittance of the contacts annealed at 550 °C for 2 min is measured to be higher than 76% at wavelengths in the range of 400–550 nm. It is shown that the Ni/AZO contact could be a suitable scheme for high-performance optical devices.