Doping of III-V Arsenide and Phosphide Wurtzite Semiconductors

The formation energies of n- and p-type dopants in III-V arsenide and phosphide semiconductors (GaAs, GaP, and InP) are calculated within a first-principles total energy approach. Our findings indicate that - for all the considered systems - both the solubility and the shallowness of the dopant level depend on the crystal phase of the host material (wurtzite or zincblende) and are the result of a complex equilibrium between local structural distortion and electronic charge reorganization. In particular, in the case of acceptors, we demonstrate that impurities are always more stable in the wurtzite lattice with an associated transition energy smaller with respect to the zincblende case. Roughly speaking, this means that it is easier to p-type dope a wurtzite crystal and the charge carrier concentration at a given temperature and doping dose is larger in the wurtzite as well. As for donors, we show that neutral chalcogen impurities have no clear preference for a specific crystal phase, while charged chalcogen impurities favor substitution in the zincblende structure with a transition energy that is smaller when compared to the wurtzite case (thus, charge carriers are more easily thermally excited to the conduction band in the zincblende phase).