• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.359-364
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• 2008

We have investigated optical and structural properties of $Al_{0.3}Ga_{0.7}N$/GaN and $Al_{0.3}Ga_{0.7}N/GaN/Al_{0.15}Ga_{0.85}N/GaN$ heterostructures (HSs) grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, by means of Hall measurement, high-resolution X-ray diffraction, and temperature- and excitation power-dependent photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. A strong GaN band edge emission and its longitudinal optical phonon replicas were observed for all the samples. At 10 K, a 2DEG-related PL peak located at ${\sim}\;3.445\;eV$ was observed for $Al_{0.3}Ga_{0.7}N$/GaN HS, while two 2DEG peaks at ${\sim}\;3.42$ and ${\sim}\;3.445\;eV$ were observed for $Al_{0.3}Ga_{0.7}N/GaN/Al_{0.15}Ga_{0.85}N/GaN$ HS due to the additional $Al_{0.15}Ga_{0.85}N$ layers. Moreover, the emission intensity of the 2DEG peak was higher in $Al_{0.3}Ga_{0.7}N/GaN/Al_{0.15}Ga_{0.85}N/GaN$ HS than in $Al_{0.3}Ga_{0.7}N$/GaN HS probably due to an effective confinement of the photo-excited holes by the additional $Al_{0.15}Ga_{0.85}N$ layers. The 2DEG-related emission intensity decreased with increasing temperature and disappeared at temperatures above 150 K. To investigate the origin of the new 2DEG peaks, the energy-band structure for multiple AlGaN/GaN HSs were simulated and compared with the experimental data. As a result, the observed high- and low-energy peaks of 2DEG can be attributed to the spatially-separated 2DEG emissions formed at different AlGaN/GaN heterointerfaces.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.20-20
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• 2008

최근 LEDs가 동일 효율의 전구에 비해 에너지 절감 효과 크며 신뢰성이 뛰어나다기 때문에 기존 광원을 빠르게 대체해 나가고 있다. 특히 자외선 파장을 가지는 LEDs는 발열이 낮아 냉각장치가 필요 없으며, 수명이 길어 기존 UV lamp에 비해 많은 장점을 가지고 있기 때문에 많은 관심을 밭고 있다. 그럼에도 불구하고 자외선 LEDs는 제조 단가가 높고 power가 낮아 소요량이 많은 등 아직 해결해야 할 부분이 많기 때문에 이를 해결하기 위해 여러가지 재료와 다양한 구조가 고려되고 있다. 그 중 ZnO는 II-VI족 화합물 반도체로써 UV영역의 넓은 밴드갭(3.37eV)을 가지는 투명한 재료이다. 특히 ZnO는 60meV의 큰 엑시톤 결합에너지를 가지며, 가시광 영역에서 높은 투과율을 가지고, 상온에서 물리적, 화학적으로 안정하기 때문에 UV sensor, UV laser, UV converter, UV LEDs 등 광소자 분야에서 연구가 활발히 진행되고 있다. ZnO가 광소자의 발광재료로써 높은 효율을 얻기 위해서는 결정성을 높여 내부 결함을 감소시키며, 발광 면적을 높일 수 있는 구조가 요구된다. 특히 MOCVD 법으로 성장한 나노막대는 에피성장되어 높은 결정성을 기대할 수 있으며, 성장 조건을 조절함으로써 나노막대의 aspect ratio와 밀도 제어할 수 있기 때문에 표면적을 효과적으로 넓혀 높은 발광효율을 얻을 수 있다. 본 실험에서는 MOCVD 법으로 실리콘과 사파이어 기판 위에 다양한 성장 온도를 가진 나노구조를 성장 시키고 온도에 따른 형상 변화와 특성을 평가하였다. ZnO 의 성장온도가 약 $360^{\circ}C$ 일 때, 밀도가 조밀하고 기판에 수직 배열한 균일한 나노막대가 성장되었으며 우수한 결정성, 광학적 특성이 나타남을 SEM, TEM, PL, XRD를 사용하여 확인하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.174-175
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• 2012

(In, Ga) N-based III-nitride semiconductor materials have been viewed as the most promising materials for the applications of blue and green light emitting devices such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes. Although the InGaN alloy can have wide range of visible wavelength by changing the In composition, it is very hard to grow high quality epilayers of In-rich InGaN because of the thermal instability as well as the large lattice and thermal mismatches. In order to avoid phase separation of InGaN, various kinds of structures of InGaN have been studied. If high-quality In-rich InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (MQW) structures are available, it is expected to achieve highly efficient phosphor-free white LEDs. In this study, we proposed a novel InGaN double hetero-structure grown on GaN nano-pyramids to generate broad-band red-color emission with high quantum efficiency. In this work, we systematically studied the optical properties of the InGaN pyramid structures. The nano-sized hexagonal pyramid structures were grown on the n-type GaN template by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. SiNx mask was formed on the n-type GaN template with uniformly patterned circle pattern by laser holography. GaN pyramid structures were selectively grown on the opening area of mask by lateral over-growth followed by growth of InGaN/GaN double hetero-structure. The bird's eye-view scanning electron microscope (SEM) image shows that uniform hexagonal pyramid structures are well arranged. We showed that the pyramid structures have high crystal quality and the thickness of InGaN is varied along the height of pyramids via transmission electron microscope. Because the InGaN/GaN double hetero-structure was grown on the nano-pyramid GaN and on the planar GaN, simultaneously, we investigated the comparative study of the optical properties. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of nano-pyramid sample and planar sample measured at 10 K. Although the growth condition were exactly the same for two samples, the nano-pyramid sample have much lower energy emission centered at 615 nm, compared to 438 nm for planar sample. Moreover, nano-pyramid sample shows broad-band spectrum, which is originate from structural properties of nano-pyramid structure. To study thermal activation energy and potential fluctuation, we measured PL with changing temperature from 10 K to 300 K. We also measured PL with changing the excitation power from 48 ${\mu}W$ to 48 mW. We can discriminate the origin of the broad-band spectra from the defect-related yellow luminescence of GaN by carrying out PL excitation experiments. The nano-pyramid structure provided highly efficient broad-band red-color emission for the future applications of phosphor-free white LEDs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.31-31
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• 2010

The growth of the high-quality GaN epilayers is of significant technological importance because of their commercializedoptoelectronic applications as high-brightness light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs) in the visible and ultraviolet spectral range. The GaN-based heterostructural epilayers have the polar c-axis of the hexagonal structure perpendicular to the interfaces of the active layers. The Ga and N atoms in the c-GaN are alternatively stacked along the polar [0001] crystallographic direction, which leads to spontaneous polarization. In addition, in the InGaN/GaN MQWs, the stress applied along the same axis contributes topiezoelectric polarization, and thus the total polarization is determined as the sum of spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations. The total polarization in the c-GaN heterolayers, which can generate internal fields and spatial separation of the electron and hole wave functions and consequently a decrease of efficiency and peak shift. One of the possible solutions to eliminate these undesirable effects is to grow GaN-based epilayers in nonpolar orientations. The polarization effects in the GaN are eliminated by growing the films along the nonpolar [$11\bar{2}0$] ($\alpha$-GaN) or [$1\bar{1}00$] (m-GaN) orientation. Although the use of the nonpolar epilayers in wurtzite structure clearly removes the polarization matters, however, it induces another problem related to the formation of a high density of planar defects. The large lattice mismatch between sapphiresubstrates and GaN layers leads to a high density of defects (dislocations and stacking faults). The dominant defects observed in the GaN epilayers with wurtzite structure are one-dimensional (1D) dislocations and two-dimensional (2D) stacking faults. In particular, the 1D threading dislocations in the c-GaN are generated from the film/substrate interface due to their large lattice and thermal coefficient mismatch. However, because the c-GaN epilayers were grown along the normal direction to the basal slip planes, the generation of basal stacking faults (BSFs) is localized on the c-plane and the generated BSFs did not propagate into the surface during the growth. Thus, the primary defects in the c-GaN epilayers are 1D threading dislocations. Occasionally, the particular planar defects such as prismatic stacking faults (PSFs) and inversion domain boundaries are observed. However, since the basal slip planes in the $\alpha$-GaN are parallel to the growth direction unlike c-GaN, the BSFs with lower formation energy can be easily formed along the growth direction, where the BSFs propagate straightly into the surface. Consequently, the lattice mismatch between film and substrate in $\alpha$-GaN epilayers is mainly relaxed through the formation of BSFs. These 2D planar defects are placed along only one direction in the cross-sectional view. Thus, the nonpolar $\alpha$-GaN films have different atomic arrangements along the two orthogonal directions ($[0001]_{GaN}$ and $[\bar{1}100]_{GaN}$ axes) on the $\alpha$-plane, which are expected to induce anisotropic biaxial strain. In this study, the anisotropic strain relaxation behaviors in the nonpolar $\alpha$-GaN epilayers grown on ($1\bar{1}02$) r-plane sapphire substrates by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVO) were investigated, and the formation mechanism of the abnormal zigzag shape PSFs was discussed using high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM).