Electric Field Induced Heating and Energy Relaxation in GaN

We report results of an investigation of electric field induced heating at low temperature in GaN 3-dimensional electron gas films grown on sapphire substrates. The excess noise of the electron gas in a patterned GaN film, while the substrate is held at low temperature, is used to determine the electron temperature. We calculate the rate of power dissipation and compare our results with a calculation of acoustic deformation potential scattering processes in GaN. We discuss the existence of a thermal boundary resistance between the GaN film and the sapphire substrate.