Influence of Extended Defects on Optoelectronic and Electronic Nitride Devices

Extended defects (dislocations, stacking faults, phase separation and alloy ordering), although are abundant in Nitride semiconductors, they do not influence the performance of minority carrier devices (LEDs, lasers, solar cells etc.) to the same degree as they do in traditional III-V compounds. On the other hand they have a stronger effect on the performance of electronic devices (FETs, BJT etc.). In this paper I am addressing the formation of extended defects and the origins of their abundance. Furthermore, I discuss the fundamental differences between nitride semiconductors and traditional III-V compounds, which lead to the insensitivity in the performance of nitride optoelectronic devices to the concentration of extended defects. The influence of these defects on electronic devices is also discussed.