Atomic scale piezoelectricity and giant piezoelectric resistance effect in gallium nitride tunnel junctions under compressive strain

Zhang Geng-Hong; Zhu Jia; Jiang Ge-Lei; Wang Biao; Zheng Yue

doi:10.7498/aps.65.107701

Abstract

It is an urgent and significant issue to investigate the influence factors of functional devices and then improve, modify or control their performances, which has important significance for the practical application and electronic industry. Based on first principle and quantum transport calculations, the effects of compressive strain on the current transport and relative electrical properties (such as the electrostatic potential energy, built-in electric field, charge density and polarization, etc.) in gallium nitride (GaN) tunnel junctions are investigated. It is found that there are potential energy drop, built-in electric field and spontaneous polarization in the GaN barrier of the tunnel junction due to the non-centrosymmetric structure of GaN. Furthermore, results also show that all these electrical properties can be adjusted by compressive strain. With the increase of the applied in-plane compressive strain, the piezocharge density in the GaN barrier of the tunnel junction gradually increases. Accordingly, the potential energy drop throughout the GaN barrier gradually flattens and the built-in electric field decreases. Meanwhile, the average polarization of the barrier is weakened and even reversed. These strain-dependent evolutions of the electric properties also provide an atomic level insight into the microscopic piezoelectricity of the GaN tunnel junction. In addition, it is inspiring to see that the current transport as well as the tunneling resistance of the GaN tunnel junction can be well tuned by the compressive strain. When the applied compressive strain decreases, the tunneling current of the junction increases and the tunneling resistance decreases. This strain control ability on the tunnel junctions current and resistance becomes more powerful at large bias voltages. At a bias voltage of -1.0 V, the tunneling resistance can increase up to 4 times by a -5% compressive strain, which also reveals the intrinsic giant piezoelectric resistance effect in the GaN tunnel junction. This study exhibits the potential applications of GaN tunnel junctions in tunable electronic devices and also implies the promising prospect of strain engineering in the field of exploiting tunable devices.

Keywords:

Authors and contacts

1.
Micro-Nano Physics and Mechanics Research Laboratory, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;
2.
State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;
3.
Institute Franco-Chinois de l’Energie Nucléaire, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China

Corresponding author: Wang Biao, wangbiao@mail.sysu.edu.cn;zhengy35@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Funds: Project supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2014M552267) and the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Grant No. 20110171110022).

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Cited By

[1]	Strite S, Morko H 1992 J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 10 1237
[2]	Ambacher O 1998 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 31 2653
[3]	Liou J K, Chen C C, Chou P C, Tsai Z J, Chang Y C, Liu W C 2014 IEEE J. Quantum Elect. 50 973
[4]	Zhao L X, Yu Z G, Sun B, Zhu S C, An P B, Yang C, Liu L, Wang J X, Li J M 2015 Chin. Phys. B 24 068506
[5]	Wu Y F, Saxler A, Moore M, Smith R P, Sheppard S, Chavarkar P M, Wisleder T, Mishra U K, Parikh P 2004 IEEE Elect. Device Lett. 25 117
[6]	Higashiwaki M, Mimura T, Matsui T 2008 Appl. Phys. Express 1 021103
[7]	Zheng Y, Woo C H 2009 Nanotechnology 20 075401
[8]	Luo X, Wang B, Zheng Y 2011 ACS Nano 5 1649
[9]	Zhang G H, Luo X, Zheng Y, Wang B 2012 Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 14 7051
[10]	Yang Y, Qi J J, Gu Y S, Wang X Q, Zhang Y 2009 Phys. Status Solidi RRL 3 269
[11]	Wang Z L 2007 Adv. Mater. 19 889
[12]	Zhou J, Fei P, Gu Y D, Mai W J, Gao Y F, Yang R S, Bao G, Wang Z L 2008 Nano Lett. 8 3973
[13]	Zhang Y, Liu Y, Wang Z L 2011 Adv. Mater. 23 3004
[14]	Feng X L, Zhang Y, Wang Z L 2013 Sci. China Tech. Sci. 56 2615
[15]	Liu Y, Zhang Y, Yang Q, Niu S M, Wang Z L 2015 Nano Energy 14 257
[16]	Jiao Z Y, Yang J F, Zhang X Z, Ma S H, Guo Y L 2011 Acta Phys. Sin. 60 117103 (in Chinese) [焦照勇, 杨继飞, 张现周, 马淑红, 郭永亮 2011 物理学报 60 117103]
[17]	Yang Z Q, Xu Z Z 1997 Acta Phys. Sin. (Overseas Edition) 6 606
[18]	Hao G D, Chen Y H, Fan Y M, Huang X H, Wang H B 2010 Chin. Phys. B 19 117104
[19]	Agrawal R, Espinosa H D 2011 Nano Lett. 11 786
[20]	Zhang J, Wang C Y, Chowdhury R, Adhikari S 2013 Scripta Mater. 68 627
[21]	Yu R M, Dong L, Pan C F, Niu S M, Liu H F, Liu W, Chua S, Chi D Z, Wang Z L 2012 Adv. Mater. 24 3532
[22]	Yu R M, Wu W Z, Ding Y, Wang Z L 2013 ACS Nano 7 6403
[23]	Yu R M, Wang X F, Peng W B, Wu W Z, Ding Y, Li S T, Wang Z L 2015 ACS Nano 9 9822
[24]	Zhao Z F, Pu X, Han C B, Du C H, Li L X, Jiang C Y, Hu W G, Wang Z L 2015 ACS Nano 9 8578
[25]	Wang C H, Liao W S, Ku N J, Li Y C, Chen Y C, Tu L W, Liu C P 2014 Small 10 4718
[26]	Jiao Q Q, Chen Z Z, Ma J, Wang S Y, Li Y, Jiang S, Feng Y L, Li J Z, Chen Y F, Yu T J, Wang S F, Zhang G Y, Tian P F, Xie E Y, Gong Z, Gu E D, Dawson M D 2015 Opt. Express 23 237856
[27]	Hertog M D, Songmuang R, Gonzalez-Posada F, Monroy E 2013 Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 52 11NG01
[28]	Kamiya T, Tajima K, Nomura K, Yanagi H, Hosono H 2008 Phys. Status Solidi A 205 1929
[29]	Kresse G, Furthmller J 1996 Phys. Rev. B 54 11169
[30]	Perdew J P, Burke K, Ernzerhof M 1996 Phys. Rev. Lett. 77 3865
[31]	Blchl P E 1994 Phys. Rev. B 50 17953
[32]	Monkhorst H J, Pack J D 1976 Phys. Rev. B 13 5188
[33]	Brandbyge M, Mozos J L, Ordejn P, Taylor J, Stokbro K 2002 Phys. Rev. B 65 165401
[34]	Payne M C, Teter M P, Allan D C, Arias T A, Joannopoulos J D 1992 Rev. Mod. Phys. 64 1045
[35]	Soler J M, Artacho E, Gale J D, Garca A, Junquera J, Ordejn P, Snchez-Portal D 2002 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14 2745
[36]	Junquera J, Cohen M H, Rabe K M 2007 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 19 213203
[37]	Zhang G H, Zheng Y, Wang B 2013 J. Appl. Lett. 114 044111
[38]	Liu W, Zhang A H, Zhang Y, Wang Z L 2015 Nano Energy 14 355
[39]	Gonze X, Lee C 1997 Phys. Rev. B 55 10355
[40]	Datta S 1997 Electronic Transport in Mesoscopic Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp102-112

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Vol. 65, Issue 10 - 2016-05-20

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