Impurity-induced disorder in III-nitride materials and devices

1. A method for impurity-induced layer disordering in III-nitride materials, comprising:

growing a III-nitride heterostructure at a growth temperature chosen to prevent layer disordering

and doping one or more of the heterostructure layers with an impurity during growth, and

post-growth annealing the heterostructure at an annealing temperature, time, and carrier gas pressure that induces disorder of one or more the heterostructure layer interfaces.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the III-nitride heterostructure comprises a plurality of AlGaN/AlN, GaN/AlN, GaN/AlGaN, InGaN/GaN, InGaN/AlN, InGaN/AlGaN, AlInN/GaN, AlInN/AlN, or AlInN/InGaN layers.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the impurity comprises silicon, magnesium, selenium, or tellurium.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the dopant concentration in the heterostructure is greater than 5×10 19 cm −3 .

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the growing comprises metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy, molecular beam epitaxy, or vapor phase epitaxy.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the growth temperature is less than 885° C.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the annealing temperature is greater than 700° C.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the annealing temperature is greater than 1000° C.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the carrier gas comprises N 2 , NH 3 , H 2 , or He.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising depositing a dielectric layer on a portion of the surface of the doped heterostructure prior to the post-growth annealing.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the dielectric layer comprises SiN, SiON, or SiO 2 .