• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.187-192
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• 2011

Tilt angle of r-plane wafer is a one of the important factors related with the quality of the GaN epi, so the fine control of the tilt angle is important for the growing of high quality non-polar a-GaN epi. We prepared the R-plane sapphire wafers with slight tilt angles for nonpolar a-plane GaN. The target tilt angles of ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ were 0, -0.1, -0.15, -0.2, -0.4, $-0.6^{\circ}$ and -0.1, 0, $0.1^{\circ}$, respectively. The tilt angles of sliced R-plane sapphire wafers were measured by x-ray and the statistical evaluation of reliability of tilt angles of wafers were performed. The tolerance of the tilt angle was ${\pm}0.03^{\circ}$. R-plane sapphire wafers have relatively large distributions of BOW and TTV data than c-plane sapphire wafers due to the large anisotropy of R-plane. As the tilt angle ${\alpha}$ was increased from -0.1 to $-0.6^{\circ}$, the step widths and heights were decreased from 156 nm to 26 nm and 0.4 nm to 0.2 nm, respectively. The growth and qualities of GaN epi seems to be largely affected by the change of step structure of R-plane sapphire wafers with tilt angle.

• 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).

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.47 no.8
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• pp.1-6
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• 2010

We report on the electrical properties of Ti/Al/Ni/Au (20 nm/ 150 nm/ 30 nm/ 100 nm) Ohmic contacts and the anisotropic conductivity of n-type ${\alpha}$-plane ([11-20]) GaN grown on $\gamma$-plane ([1-102]) sapphire substrates. The Ti/Al/Ni/Au Ohmic contacts and their sheet resistances are characterized by using the transfer length method (TLM) as a function of azimuthal angles. It is found that the specific contact resistance does not depend on the axis orientation and there are significant electrical anisotropy in ${\alpha}$-plane GaN films on $\gamma$-plane sapphire substrates, and the sheet resistance varies with azimuthal angles. The sheet resistance values in the direction parallel to m-axis [1-100] are 25% ~ 75% lower than those parallel to c-axis [0001] directions. Thus, Basal stacking faults (BSFs) are offered as a feasible source of the anisotropic mobility in defected m-axis direction because the band-edge discontinuities owing to the differential band gap structure.