Minority electron transport anisotropy in p-type Al/sub x/Ga/sub 1-x/N/GaN superlattices

The minority electron diffusion length, L, in Mg-doped molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) grown p-type Al/sub x/Ga/sub 1-x/N/GaN superlattices with aluminum content x=0.1 and 0.2 was measured perpendicular and parallel to the superlattice planes by the electron beam induced current technique. A large anisotropy in the transport properties was observed with the effect varying from 1:3 to 1:6. We attribute an experimentally observed diffusion length anisotropy to minority electron scattering during transport across the potential barriers of the superlattice. Reference p-GaN samples were also investigated, and the diffusion length was observed to be isotropic in both MOCVD (L=0.5 /spl mu/m) and MBE (L=0.27 /spl mu/m) grown samples.