A lengthy review of the role of charged native point defects in controlling the solubility of electrically active dopants was presented. This covered the key roles of positively charged As vacancies in determining the doping range over which the solubility curve was linear, and of multiply-negative charged Ga vacancies in determining the annealing and diffusion behavior in n+ material. An equilibrium thermodynamic model which was based upon these concepts was shown to describe accurately the doping behavior of Te, Zn, Sn, Ge, Si and C and the formation and annealing of EL2 (assumed to be the As antisite defect) in melt- and solution-grown crystals. This model provided a much more comprehensive and accurate description of dopant solubility than did the Schottky barrier model of bulk non-equilibrium dopant incorporation. It was shown that partial autocompensation of donor dopants by the donor-Ga vacancy acceptor complex occurred for both group-IV and group-VI donor dopants. The deduced concentrations of As vacancies which had been grown into the crystal during melt growth were shown to be in excellent agreement with values which were determined by titration and density versus lattice-parameter measurements. Due to the presence of charged native point defect species (especially VAs+), the free-carrier concentration at high temperatures was greater than the intrinsic concentration. The calculated concentration was shown to be in excellent agreement with published data. The defect-related headings of the review were: native point defect concentrations and charge states in GaAs, neutral native point defects, charged native point defects and electroneutrality, defects in heavily Sn-doped crystals, formation and annealing behavior of antisite defects, formation of EL2 in melt-grown crystals, incorporation of EL2 in liquid-phase epitaxial growth from Bi solution, the Ga antisite defect, analysis of native point defect concentrations in GaAs, expressions for native point defect concentrations, As and Ga vacancies, the Schottky product, the As antisite defect, the Ga antisite defect, As and Ga interstitials.

A comprehensive thermodynamic analysis of native point defect and dopant solubilities in gallium arsenide D.T.J.Hurle: Journal of Applied Physics, 1999, 85[10], 6957-7022