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Evaluation of growth methods for the heteroepitaxy of non-polar (1120) GAN on sapphire by MOVPE


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Authors

Sutherland, D 
Zhu, T 
Emery, R 
Badcock, TJ 

Abstract

Non-polar a-plane gallium nitride (GaN) lms have been grown on r-plane (1102) sapphire by metal organic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE). A total of ve in-situ defect reduction techniques for a-plane GaN are compared, including two variants with a low temperature GaN nucleation layer (LTNL) and three variants without LTNL, in which the high- temperature growth of GaN is performed directly on the sapphire using various crystallite sizes. The material quality is investigated by photoluminescence (PL), x-ray di raction, cathodoluminescence, atomic force and optical microscopy. It is found that all layers are anisotropically strained with threading dislocation densities over 109 cm􀀀2. The PL spectrum is typically dominated by emission from basal plane stacking faults. Overall, growth techniques without LTNL do not yield any particular improvement and even result in the creation of new defects, ie. inversion domains, which are seldom observed if a low temperature GaN nucleation layer is used. The best growth method uses a LTNL combined with a single silicon nitride interlayer.

Description

Keywords

Defects, Characterization, Metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy, Nitrides

Journal Title

Journal of Crystal Growth

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0022-0248
1873-5002

Volume Title

408

Publisher

Elsevier BV
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/H019324/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/I012591/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/J003603/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/H047816/1)
European Research Council (279361)
This work is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (United Kingdom) under EP/J003603/1 and EP/H0495331. The European Research Council has also provided nancial support under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement no 279361 (MACONS).