Nitrides in Transition: Exploring Unconventional Epitaxial Semiconductors and Superconductors

The steady graduation of GaN RF transistor technology from the laboratory to the commercial marketplace has recently prompted a number of research endeavors to investigate the applicability of novel ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor (UWBGS) materials such as Ga2O3, diamond, and high Al-fraction AlGaN to enhance next generation solid-state power amplifiers. To leverage much of the existing materials growth infrastructure that has been previously developed for common III-N semiconductors, our work at NRL has focused on augmenting III-N materials with transition metals. This talk will describe our latest materials and device results involving a number of transition metal nitride materials, including the UWBGS material ScAlN, which possesses a substantially larger spontaneous polarization than AlN, and epitaxial superconductors such as Nb2N and Ta2N.