This article was presented as part of Symposium G, "Gallium Nitride and Related Alloys" at the 1998 Fall Meeting of the Materials Research Society held in Boston, Massachusetts, November 30-December 4.

Abstract

Ambient gas effect on the epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) of GaN via metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy (MOVPE) on a MOVPE-grown GaN (0001) / sapphire (0001) substrate with a SiO₂ stripe mask has been studied by means of field-emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and high-resolution X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Different ambient gases of nitrogen, hydrogen and their mixture (mixture ratio, hydrogen : nitrogen = 1 : 1) affect the lateral overgrowth rate, the surface morphology and the crystalline tilting of ELO-GaN layers. XRD revealed that the ELO-GaN layer on the SiO₂ mask aligned along the <1 - 100> direction exhibited anisotropic crystalline tilting toward <11 - 2 0>. For ELO-GaN growth in nitrogen ambient, the growth rate of the (0001) facet decreases, the lateral overgrowth rate increases and the tilting of the ELO-GaN layer increases, while no smooth surface is obtained, in comparison with ELO-GaN growth in hydrogen ambient. For the mixture ambient, a smooth surface with a fast lateral overgrowth rate is achieved and the dislocation density is not more than 10⁷ cm^-2 , which is comparable to that in hydrogen ambient. 1.

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Cite this article as: MRS Internet J. Nitride Semicond. Res. 4S1, G3.1 (1999).

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