Mg, the only effective p-type dopant for nitrides, is
well-studied in thin films due to the important role the impurity plays in light
emitting diodes and high power electronics. However, there are few reports of Mg
in thick free-standing GaN substrates. Here we evaluate the material quality and
point defects in GaN grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) using metallic
Mg as the doping source. The crystal quality is typical of commercially grown
HVPE substrates, and the photoluminescence measurements reveal distinctively
sharp excitonic and shallow-donor shallow-acceptor features. Secondary ion mass
spectroscopy indicates total Mg concentrations between 7x1016 and
6x1018 cm-3 in the four separate samples studied but,
more significantly, photoluminescence and electron paramagnetic resonance
spectroscopy show that the Mg is incorporated as a shallow acceptor.