Occurrence and elimination of in-plane misoriented crystals in AlN epilayers on sapphire via pre-treatment control

AlN epilayers are grown directly on sapphire （0001） substrates each of which has a low temperature AlN nucleation layer. The effects of pretreatments of sapphire snbstrates, including exposures to NH3/H2 and to H2 only ambients at different temperatures, before the growth of AlN epilayers is investigated. In-plane misoriented crystals occur in N-polar AlN epilayers each with pretreatment in a H2 only ambient, and are characterized by six 60°-apart peaks with splits in each peak in （1012） phi scan and two sets of hexagonal diffraction patterns taken along the [0001] zone axis in electron diffraction. These misoriented crystals can be eliminated in AlN epilayers by the pretreatment of sapphire substrates in the NH3/H2 ambient. AlN epilayers by the pretreatment of sapphire substrates in the NH3/H2 ambient are Al-polar. Our results show the pretreatments and the nucleation layers are responsible for the polarities of the AlN epilayers. We ascribe these results to the different strain relaxation mechanisms induced by the lattice mismatch of AlN and sapphire.

Characterization of the N-polar GaN film grown on C-plane sapphire and misoriented C-plane sapphire substrates by MOCVD

Gallium nitride(GaN) thin film of the nitrogen polarity(N-polar) was grown on C-plane sapphire and misoriented C-plane sapphire substrates respectively by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition(MOCVD). The misorientation angle is off-axis from C-plane toward M-plane of the substrates, and the angle is 2°and 4°respectively. The nitrogen polarity was confirmed by examining the images of the scanning electron microscope before and after the wet etching in potassium hydroxide(KOH) solution. The morphology was studied by the optical microscope and atomic force microscope. The crystalline quality was characterized by the x-ray diffraction. The lateral coherence length, the tilt angle, the vertical coherence length, and the vertical lattice-strain were acquired using the pseudo-Voigt function to fit the x-ray diffraction curves and then calculating with four empirical formulae. The lateral coherence length increases with the misorientation angle, because higher step density and shorter distance between adjacent steps can lead to larger lateral coherence length.The tilt angle increases with the misorientation angle, which means that the misoriented substrate can degrade the identity of crystal orientation of the N-polar GaN film. The vertical lattice-strain decreases with the misorientation angle. The vertical coherence length does not change a lot as the misorientation angle increases and this value of all samples is close to the nominal thickness of the N-polar GaN layer. This study helps to understand the influence of the misorientation angle of misoriented C-plane sapphire on the morphology, the crystalline quality, and the microstructure of N-polar GaN films.