This book is based on nearly a decade of materials and electronics research at the leading research institution on the nitride topic in Europe. It is a comprehensive monograph and tutorial that will be of interest to graduate students of electrical engineering, communication engineering, and physics; to materials, device, and circuit engineers in research and industry; to all scientists with a general interest in advanced electronics.

Based on its outstanding properties, including a wide energy band gap, high thermal conductivity, and high electron drift velocity, GaN is uniquely suited for many novel devices including solar-blind UV light detectors, high power microwave transistors, and cold cathode electron emitters. This excellent reference covers the basic physical and chemical properties, surveys existing processing technology, and presents summaries of the current state-of-the-art of devices.

Semiconductor spintronics is expected to lead to a new generation of transistors, lasers and integrated magnetic sensors that can be used to create ultra-low power, high speed memory, logic and photonic devices. Useful spintronic devices will need materials with practical magnetic ordering temperatures and current research points to gallium and aluminium nitride magnetic superconductors as having great potential. This book details current research into the properties of III-nitride semiconductors and their usefulness in novel devices such as spin-polarized light emitters, spin field effect transistors, integrated sensors and high temperature electronics. Written by three leading researchers in nitride semiconductors, the book provides an excellent introduction to gallium nitride technology and will be of interest to all reseachers and industrial practitioners wishing to keep up to date with developments that may lead to the next generation of transistors, lasers and integrated magnetic sensors.

Tremendous progress has been made in the last few years in the growth, doping and processing technologies of the wide bandgap semiconductors. As a result, this class of materials now holds significant promis for semiconductor electronics in a broad range of applications. The principal driver for the current revival of interest in III-V Nitrides is their potential use in high power, high temperature, high frequency and optical devices resistant to radiation damage. This book provides a wide number of optoelectronic applications of III-V nitrides and covers the entire process from growth to devices and applications making it essential reading for those working in the semiconductors or microelectronics. Broad review of optoelectronic applications of III-V nitrides

The three volumes of this handbook treat the fundamentals, technology and nanotechnology of nitride semiconductors with an extraordinary clarity and depth. They present all the necessary basics of semiconductor and device physics and engineering together with an extensive reference section. Volume 1 deals with the properties and growth of GaN. The deposition methods considered are: hydride VPE, organometallic CVD, MBE, and liquid/high pressure growth. Additionally, extended defects and their electrical nature, point defects, and doping are reviewed.

This book presents the first comprehensive overview of the properties and fabrication methods of GaN-based power transistors, with contributions from the most active research groups in the field. It describes how gallium nitride has emerged as an excellent material for the fabrication of power transistors; thanks to the high energy gap, high breakdown field, and saturation velocity of GaN, these devices can reach breakdown voltages beyond the kV range, and very high switching frequencies, thus being suitable for application in power conversion systems. Based on GaN, switching-mode power converters with efficiency in excess of 99 % have been already demonstrated, thus clearing the way for massive adoption of GaN transistors in the power conversion market. This is expected to have important advantages at both the environmental and economic level, since power conversion losses account for 10 % of global electricity consumption. The first part of the book describes the properties and advantages of gallium nitride compared to conventional semiconductor materials. The second part of the book describes the techniques used for device fabrication, and the methods for GaN-on-Silicon mass production. Specific attention is paid to the three most advanced device structures: lateral transistors, vertical power devices, and nanowire-based HEMTs. Other relevant topics covered by the book are the strategies for normally-off operation, and the problems related to device reliability. The last chapter reviews the switching characteristics of GaN HEMTs based on a systems level approach. This book is a unique reference for people working in the materials, device and power electronics fields; it provides interdisciplinary information on material growth, device fabrication, reliability issues and circuit-level switching investigation.