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Dislocations in AlGaN: Core Structure, Atom Segregation, and Optical Properties

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Massabuau, FCP 
Rhode, SL 
Horton, MK 
O'Hanlon, TJ 
Kovacs, A 

Abstract

We conducted a comprehensive investigation of dislocations in Al0.46Ga0.54N. Using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, the atomic structure and atom distribution at the dislocation core have been examined. We report that the core configuration of dislocations in AlGaN is consistent with that of other materials in the III-Nitride system. However, we observed that the dissociation of mixed-type dislocations is impeded by alloying GaN with AlN, which is confirmed by our experimental observation of Ga and Al atom segregation in the tensile and compressive parts of the dislocations, respectively. Investigation of the optical properties of the dislocations shows that the atom segregation at dislocations has no significant effect on the intensity recorded by cathodoluminescence in the vicinity of the dislocations. These results are in contrast with the case of dislocations in In0.09Ga0.91N where segregation of In and Ga atoms also occurs but results in carrier localization limiting non-radiative recombination at the dislocation. This study therefore sheds light on why InGaN-based devices are generally more resilient to dislocations than their AlGaN-based counterparts.

Description

Keywords

aberration-corrected TEM, AlGaN, cathodoluminescence, dislocation, InGaN

Journal Title

Nano Letters

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1530-6984
1530-6992

Volume Title

17

Publisher

American Chemical Society
Sponsorship
European Research Council (279361)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M010589/1)
European Research Council (307636)
European Commission (312483)
This project is funded in part by the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement 279361 (MACONS). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement 312483 - ESTEEM2 (Integrated Infrastructure InitiativeI3). S.R. acknowledges financial support from the ERC Starting Grant 307636 “SCOPE”. M.H. would like to acknowledge support from the Lindemann Trust Fellowship.
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