In this letter we report the fabrication and characterization of Schot
tky barrier photodetectors on p-type GaN films. These films were grown
over basal plane sapphire substrates using low pressure metalorganic
chemical vapor deposition and magnesium as the p-type dopant. The curr
ent-voltage and capacitance-voltage characteristics were measured for
Ti/Au Schottky barriers for a film with a p doping of 7 X 10(17) cm-3.
We measured a 1.5 V forward turn on and a 3 V reverse breakdown. The
zero bias responsivity of a detector with 1 mm2 area was measured to b
e 0.13 A/W. For these photovoltaic detectors, the photoresponse was ne
arly constant from 200 to 365 nm and fell sharply by several orders of
magnitude for wavelengths above 365 nm.