• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.22-26
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• 2001

Microstructures of AlN thin films on Si substrates grown by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy were analyzed with various growth temperatures and substrate orientations. Reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) patterns were checked for the in-situ monitoring of the growth condition. X-ray diffraction(XRD), double crystal X-ray diffraction (DCXD), and transmission electron microscopy/diffraction (TEM/TED) techniques were employed to characterize the microstructure of the films after growth. On Si(100) sub-strates, AlN thin films were grown mostly along the hexagonal c-axis orientation at temperature higher than $850^{\circ}C$. On the other hand the AlN films on Si(111) were epitaxially grown with directional coherencies in AlN(0001)/Si(111), AlN(1100)/Si(110), and AlN(1120)/Si(112). The microstructure of AlN thin films on Si(111) substrates, with a full width at half maximum of almost 3000 arcsec at 2$\theta$=$36.2^{\circ}$, showed that the single crystal films were grown, even if they includ a lot of crystal defects such as dislocations and stacking faults.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.281-287
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• 2009

ZnO thin film was grown on a sapphire single crystal substrate by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy. In addition to near band edge (NBE) emissions, both blue and green luminescences are also observed together. The PL intensity of the blue luminescence (BL) range from 2.7 to 2.9 eV increased as the amount of activated oxygen increased, but green luminescence (GL) was weakly observed at about 2.4 eV without much change in intensity. This result is quite unlike previous studies in which BL and GL were regarded as the transition between shallow donor levels such as oxygen vacancy and interstitial zinc. Based on the transition level and formation energy of the ZnO intrinsic defects predicted through the first principle calculation, which employs density functional approximation (DFA) revised by local density approximation (LDA) and the LDA+U approach, the green and blue luminescence are nearly coincident with the transition from the conduction band to zinc vacancies of $V^{2-}_{Zn}$ and $V^-_{Zn}$, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.246-246
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2008.08a
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• pp.101-101
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• 2008

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.114-114
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• 2009

ZnO has received considerable attention due to its potential applicability to optoelectronic devices such as ultraviolet-light emitting diodes (UVLEDs) and laser diodes (LDs). As well known, however, polar ZnO with the growth direction along the c-axis has spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations that will result in decreased quantum efficiency. Recently, nonpolar ZnO has been studied to avoid such a polarization effect. In order to realize applications of nonpoar ZnO-based films to LEDs, growth of high quality alloys for quantum well structures is one of the important tasks that should be solved. $Mg_xZn_{1-x}O$ and $Cd_xZn_{1-x}O$ is ones of most promising alloys for this application because the alloys of ZnO with MgO and CdO provide a wide range of band-gap engineering spanning from 2.4 to 7.8 eV. In this study, we investigated on $Mg_xZn_{1-x}O$ films grown with various Mg/Zn flux ratios The films were grown on R-plane sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PAMBE). we investigated on $Mg_xZn_{1-x}O$ films grown with various Mg/Zn flux ratios. The films were grown on R-plane sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PAMBE). With the relatively low Mg/Zn flux ratios, a typical striated anisotropic surface morphology which was generally observed from the nonpolar (11-20) ZnO film on r-plane sapphire substrates. By increasing the Mg/Zn flux ratio, however, additional islands were appeared on the surface and finally the surface morphology was entirely changed, which was generally observed for the (0001) polar ZnO films by losing the striated morphology. Investigations by X-ray $\Theta-2{\Theta}$ diffraction revealed that (0002) and (10-11) ZnO planes are appeared in $Mg_xZn_{1-x}O$ films by increasing the Mg/Zn flux ratio. Further detailed investigation by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and photoluminescence (PL) will be discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.247-247
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• 2011

플라즈마 분자선 에피택시(plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy)법을 이용하여 다공질 실리콘(porous silicon)에 ZnO 박막을 성장하였다. 성장 후, 아르곤 분위기에서 10분 간 다양한 온도(500~700$^{\circ}C$)로 열처리하였다. 다공질 실리콘 및 열처리 온도가 ZnO 박막의 특성에 미치는 영향을 scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), photoluminescence (PL)을 이용하여 분석하였다. 실리콘 기판에 성장된 ZnO 박막은 일반적은 섬구조(island structure)로 성장된 반면, 다공질 실리콘에 성장된 ZnO 박막은 산맥과 같은 구조(mountain range-like structure)로 성장되었다. 열처리 온도가 증가함에 따라 ZnO 박막의 grain size는 증가하였다. 실리콘 기판 위에 성장된 ZnO 박막은 wurtzite 구조를 나타내는 여러 개의 회절 피크가 관찰된 반면, 다공질 실리콘에 성장된 ZnO 박막은 c-축 배향성(c-axis preferred orientation)을 나타내는 ZnO (002) 회절 피크만이 나타났다. 다공질 실리콘에 성장된 ZnO 박막의 구조적 및 광학적 특성이 실리콘 기판에 성장된 ZnO 박막의 특성보다 우수하게 나타났다. 뿐만 아니라, 열처리 온도가 증가함에 따라 다공질 실리콘에 성장된 ZnO 박막의 PL 강도비(intensity ratio)가 실리콘 기판에 성장된 ZnO 박막의 강도비보다 월등하게 증가하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.155-156
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• 2006

Single crystalline ZnO fims were successfully grown on r-plane sapphire substrate by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. Epitaxial relationship between the ZnO film and the-r-plane sapphire was determined to be [-1101]$Al_2O_3\;{\parallel}$ [0001]ZnO, [11-20]$Al_2O_3\;{\parallel}$ [-1100]ZnO based on the in-situ RHEED analysis and confirmed again by HRXRD measurements. Grown (11-20) ZnO films showed faceted structure along the <0001> direction and the RMS roughness was about 4 nm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.119-119
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• 2010

We report strong exciton transition and exciton-phonon couplings in photoluminescence (PL) of ZnO thin films grown on MgO/sapphire (buffer/substrate) by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. The PL spectra at 10 K showed the intensity of the dominant emission, donor-bound exciton transition of front surface (top surface, the latter part in growth) is found to be about 100 times higher than that of back surface (in-depth bottom area, the initial part), while the room temperature PL spectra showed dominant contributions from the free exciton emissions and phonon-replicas of free excitons for front surface and back surface, respectively, It could be attributed to the strong contributions of exciton-phonon coupling. Time resolved PL spectra reveal that the life time of exciton recombination from the front surface are longer than those from back surface. This is most probably due to the fact that reduction of non-radiative recombination in the front surface. This investigation indicates that the existence of native defects or trap centers which can be reduced by the proper initial condition in growth and the exciton-phonon interaction couplings play an important role in optical properties and crystal quality of ZnO thin films.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.185-189
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• 2012

We report plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy of $In_XGa_{1-X}N$ films on c-plane sapphire substrates. Prior to the growth of $In_XGa_{1-X}N$ films, GaN film was grown on the nitride c-plane sapphire substrate by two-dimensional (2D) growth mode. For the growth of GaN, Ga flux of $3.7{\times}10^{-8}$ torr as a beam equivalent pressure (BEP) and a plasma power of 150 W with a nitrogen flow rate of 0.76 sccm were fixed. The growth of 2D GaN growth was confirmed by $in-situ$ reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) by observing a streaky RHEED pattern with a strong specular spot. InN films showed lower growth rates even with the same growth conditions (same growth temperature, same plasma condition, and same BEP value of III element) than those of GaN films. It was observed that the growth rate of GaN is 1.7 times higher than that of InN, which is probably caused by the higher vapor pressure of In. For the growth of $In_xGa_{1-x}N$ films with different In compositions, total III-element flux (Ga plus In BEPs) was set to $3.7{\times}10^{-8}$ torr, which was the BEP value for the 2D growth of GaN. The In compositions of the $In_xGa_{1-x}N$ films were determined to be 28, 41, 45, and 53% based on the peak position of (0002) reflection in x-ray ${\theta}-2{\theta}$ measurements. The growth of $In_xGa_{1-x}N$ films did not show a streaky RHEED pattern but showed spotty patterns with weak streaky lines. This means that the net sticking coefficients of In and Ga, considered based on the growth rates of GaN and InN, are not the only factor governing the growth mode; another factor such as migration velocity should be considered. The sample with an In composition of 41% showed the lowest full width at half maximum value of 0.20 degree from the x-ray (0002) omega rocking curve measurements and the lowest root mean square roughness value of 0.71 nm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.95-96
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• 2005

The general method and mechanism for the polarity control of heteroepitaxial wurtzite films, such as ZnO and GaN, by interface engineering via plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy are addressed. We proposed the principle and method controlling the crystal polarity of ZnO on GaN and GaN on ZnO. The crystal polarity of the lower film was maintained by forming a heterointerfce without any interface layer between the upper and the lower layers. However the crystal polarity could be changed by forming the heterointerface with the interface layer having an inversion center. The principle and method suggested here give us a promising tool to fabricate polarity inverted heterostructures, which applicable to invent novel heterostructures and devices.