Defect structures in GaN thin films grown on (0001) sapphire have been studied using a combination of different transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. Two fundamentally different types of defects are found in these films. Planar defects which lie on planes perpendicular to the growth surface are common. In some regions of the films, other planar defects are present which run parallel to the surface of the substrate. The terminology used to describe these different defects varies quite widely in the literature and includes combinations of antiphase (inversion) domain boundaries and stacking faults. The second type of defect is generally referred to as a threading dislocation since many thread through the whole thickness of the film. Dislocations with different Burgers vectors have been identified in this work and in previous studies; these dislocations usually have a component of their Burgers vector lying normal to the (0001) plane. The overall defect structures in these films have been characterized using conventional bright-field and dark-field imaging. The detailed structure of the individual defects have been examined using weak-beam microscopy both in plan view and in cross section. This paper illustrates the different types of defects, both planar and linear, compares them to defects which have been characterized more thoroughly in related materials, and discuss the nomenclature of the different defect configurations.

The microstructure and typical defects in GaN and GaN/GaAlN thin film heterostructures grown on (0001)α-A12O3 were investigated using different transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques including diffraction contrast analysis, multiple dark field imaging, and highresolution TEM. The films were grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) technique. All of the films exhibited good electrical/optical properties. Yet, films were found to be of two distinctive types in terms of the microstructure. Films of the first type (A) were found to contain high, up to the 109 cm2, density of inversion domains (IDs) as well as pure edge (b=l/3[11 20]), screw and mixed type dislocations with the average density of 109 - 1010 cm−2. Smoother surface of the film, absence of IDs, and low (down to 107 cm−2 in the device quality layers) density of screw and mixed type dislocations were found to be characteristic for the second type (B) microstructure. The majority of defects present in these B-type GaN and GaN/GaA1N thin films were found to be threading pure edge dislocations associated with low angle tilt sub-grain boundaries. Despite the 1010 cm−2 density of the edge dislocations, the films displayed the devicequality electrical characteristics. Type A and type B microstructure can be obtained by the variation of growth conditions. The correlation between the optical and structural properties are discussed.

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to characterize the microstructure in GaN films deposited by two different methods. An 11 μm thick film was deposited directly on a sapphire substrate by HVPE; an 8 μm thick film was deposited on a 15 nm buffer layer of AIN on sapphire by MOVPE. The dislocation densities in the top layer of the HVPE and MOVPE ilms were ∼109 cm-2 and ∼5 x 109 cm-2 respectively. In the HVPE film this was almost exclusively threading dislocations (TDs), ∼70% of which had edge character. In addition to the TDs, the MOVPE sample also contained an appreciable number of dislocations lying in the basal plane. The microstructure of each film was dominated by a subgrain structure of slightly misoriented cells. In the MOVPE specimen, approximately 90% of the TDs were associated with subgrain walls, whereas only approximately 75% of the dislocations in the HVPE specimen were associated with walls. Both the HVPE and MOVPE samples experienced 40% coarsening of the cells through the thickness of the film. The subgrains of the MOVPE sample were 75% smaller than those in the HVPE sample (350 and 1300 nm, respectively). The average dislocation spacing in the walls was 50% smaller in the MOVPE sample than in the HVPE sample (82 and 180 nm, respectively).

We have studied the microstructures of lasing and non-lasing ZnO films on sapphire in plan-view and cross-section by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). While ZnO films in general are made up of cloumnar close-packed c-axis misoriented nanocrystals, the misorientation in nonlasing film, typically 5°, is considerably larger than lasing film, typically less than 1°. A rather high density of pinholes or nanotubes is associated with the highly misoriented films. The misorientation between adjacent grains is taken up by grain boundary dislocations. Room temperature lasing films contain a high density of threading boundary edge dislocations, in excess of 1010 cm−2. But faceting in the columnar nanocrystals is not well developed so that the grain boundaries are not clearly visible. Tilting of (0001) lattice planes between grains originating from substrate surface step and growth fault step, however, has been observed in high resolution electron microscopy (HREM) images.

Using N-rich growth conditions, amorphous domains were formed in the initial stage of a cyclotron assisted MBE of GaN grown over 6H-SiC (0001) without any buffer layer. These domains are facetted along {1010} prismatic planes. Their density is about 1010cm-2 and they are mainly located in a 50 nm layer close to the substrate surface.

AIN buffer and GaN layers grown on (0001) sapphire substrate by molecular beam epitaxy have been analysed by high resolution electron microscopy. They are found to be made of mosaic grains rotated around the c-axis by angles in the range of 0-20°. According to the value of the rotation angle, these boundaries can be classified as low-angle and high-angle grain boundaries. Some of these high-angle grain boundaries correspond to special misorientations which can be described in terms of coincidence site lattice. For one of these grains, the rotated angle is equal to 18.94° that is very close to the coincidence orientation, sigma = 31 with a rotation angle equal to 17.89°. This leads to a new epitaxial relationship (0001)sap// (0001)AIN and [1120]sap//[2130]AIN.

In-situ reflection high energy electron diffraction total reflection angle X-ray spectroscopy (RHEED-TRAXS) was performed to monitor alloy composition at the surface during growth of nitrides by RF-MBE for the first time. TRAXS signal of the GaLα line is found to be more sensitive to the composition at the surface than the GaKαline. A difference in the composition of layer adsorbed on the surface and the solid alloy layer has been identified.

In this study, the causes of biaxial and hydrostatic stress components in epitaxially grown thin GaN films on sapphire are analyzed. It is observed that growth by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) and by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) are governed by very similar physical principles. Differences in the absolute stress values are mainly due to the difference in growth temperature. It is argued that in the case of MOCVD growth the onset of plasticity for higher growth temperatures is responsible for a larger stress relaxation in the buffer layer. It is further found that either process can result in highly off-stoichiometric GaN layers, as manifested by the large variations in the a and c lattice parameters caused by intrinsic point defects.

The microstructure of lnxGal-xN quantum wells with intermediate indium concentrations (x = 0.28 and 0.52) has been studied using transmission electron microscopy. High-resolution lattice images and dark-field images taken under high tilt conditions indicate that the quantum wells are inhomogeneous in character. Most of the area of the quantum wells is pseudomorphic with the GaN adjacent layer. However, misfit dislocations are sometimes observed, although with an inhomogeneous distribution. Strained cluster regions are observed in the high-indium concentration quantum wells, with dimensions ranging fi'om 3 to 10 nm in diameter. Evidence is presented suggesting the extent of clustering depends on the exact orientation of the growth surface which is related to the columnar nature of the GaN/sapphire epitaxy.

The best layers of GaN grown on SiC or sapphire contain high densities of threading dislocations, which do not seem to exhibit a critically important electrical activity. It is possible that the electrical activity of these dislocations may change with time. The large majority of the threading dislocations are a type, with 1/3 <1120> Burgers vector and their line parallel to the [0001] growth direction. The atomic structure of the a threading dislocations was found to correspond to 5/7 or 8 atoms rings core with rather equal frequency. The 8 atoms ring cores contain dangling bonds and will present favourable sites for atomic impurities which eventuallly can modify the good performances of the devices.

Cubic GaN (c-GaN) layers were grown by if-plasma source MBE on (001) GaAs prepared by atomic-hydrogen treatment at “high temperatures”, and the structural properties of the epilayers were investigated by the high-resolution X-ray rocking curve and the reciprocal space mapping measurements. The growth temperature was varied from 620 to 740°C. It was found that single domain “device-quality” c-GaN layers could be grown for the first time; the FWHM of the X-ray rocking curves for the (002) c-GaN could be as small as 70 - 90 arcsec and the inclusion of h-GaN phase in the c-GaN epilayers grown at temperatures above 680°C could be less than 4×10-3.

SiC was grown on the top Si layer of SIMOX by carbonization followed by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Subsequently, GaN was deposited on the SiC by metalorganic (MO)CVD to produce a GaN/SiC/Si/SiO2/Si multilayer structure. This multilayer film was investigated by conventional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution (HR)TEM using cross-sectional thin foils. The GaN layer was found to consist of predominately hexagonal gallium nitride (h-GaN), and a smaller fraction of cubic GaN (c-GaN) crystallites. The orientation relationship between most of the h-GaN grains and cubic SiC (3C-SiC) was found to be (0001)GaN//(1I1)sic; [1120]GaN//[110]SiC, while most of the c-GaN grains had an orientation relationship (001)GaN//(001)SiC; [110]GaN//[110]SiC with respect to the 3C-SiC substrate. The hexagonal grains of GaN were found to grow as two variants. In this paper, the defects in both h-GaN and c-GaN are characterized and discussed.

Crystalline quality of nitrides on sapphire by OMVPE has been investigated. First, in-situ observations of the crystallization process of the low temperature deposited AIN buffer layer or GaN buffer layer on sapphire substrate have been performed. Small hexagonal mesas were formed from the sapphire to the surface and finally they formed a stacked structure. Secondly, a low temperature deposited buffer layer located between the high temperature grown GaN was found to reduce the etch pit density of GaN films. Thirdly, structural properties of Ga1−xInxN (0 ≤x≤0.21, and x= l) on GaN and GaInN/GaN MQWs on GaN have been characterized by Xray diffraction. Coherently grown GaInN showed almost the same twisting as the underlying GaN layer, while free standing InN showed large twisting. Thickness of the well layers in MQWs has been controlled within one monolayer preciseness, and the fluctuation of alloy composition has been controlled to within 2%

Properties of GaN and its alloys are strongly controlled by impurities and strain. Using large hydrostatic and biaxial pressure we identify the role of donor dopants and stress induced fields. The doping of Si and 0 as relevant representatives of group-IV and group-VI impurities are studied in Raman spectroscopy. For pressures above 20 GPa we find that oxygen induces a strongly localized gap state while Si continues to behave as a hydrogenic donor. Such a DX-like behavior of 0 indicates and corresponds to doping limitations in AIGaN alloys. The site specific (ON, SiGa) formation of a gap-state is attributed to bond strengths of the respective neighbors. In photoreflection of pseudomorphic GaInN we observe pronounced Franz-Keldysh oscillations corresponding to piezoelectric fields of 0.6 MV/cm. An observed redshift of the luminescence is found to originate in electric field induced tailstates. A reduced but similar effect is expected for GaN possibly explaining observations of persistent photoconductivity in a wide range of materials.

Photoluminescence connected with excitons and their phonon replicas in undoped homoepitaxial MOCVD grown GaN layers have been studied in the temperature range 2 - 100 K. It is shown that the coupling between LO phonons and neutral acceptor bound excitons (ABE) is much stronger than the coupling between LO phonons and neutral donor bound excitons (DBE). In spite that emission due the DBE no-phonon is one order of magnitude stronger than the ABE one, the predominant feature of the first LO phonon replica of the excitonic structures is related to the ABE. It is argued that this fact is connected with delocalization of the acceptor wavefunction in the k-space which leads to a higher number of interacting LO phonons in the first replica. On the other hand, the second LO phonon replica of the excitonic structures is predominantly connected with the DBE. In the case of two LO phonons interacting with bound excitons the k - conservation has not so direct influence. In addition, the temperature dependence of LO phonon replicas and their kinetics in ps regime are also reported.

The lateral transport in GaN films produced by electron cyclotron resonance plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (ECR-MBE) doped n-type with Si to the levels of 1015 − 1020 cm−3 was investigated. The room temperature electron mobility vs carrier concentration was found to follow a family of bell-shaped curves consistent with a recently proposed model in which dislocations with an edge component introduce acceptor centers along the dislocation lines which capture electrons from the conduction band in n-type GaN. The mechanism of scattering was investigated by studying the temperature dependence of the carrier concentration and electron mobility. We found that for the samples with high carrier concentration (> 1018cm−3), the scattering at low temperatures is dominated by impurities while for samples with low carrier concentration (<1017 cm−3), the scattering is dominated by charged dislocations.

The effects of piezoelectric fields on the static and dynamic optical properties of GaInN/GaN and GaN/AIGaN double heterostructures and single quantum wells are studied by time-resolved photoluminescence. We find a strong increase of the luminescence decay time of the dominating transition with well thickness by several orders of magnitude. For well thicknesses larger than about 5 nm, two emission lines with strongly differing decay times are observed, which are attributed to spatially direct and indirect transitions. Our experimental findings are consistently explained by a quantitative model based on the piezoelectric fields in strained wurtzite quantum wells.

The photoconductivity response of Mg-doped GaN thin films was studied in the time domain of 50 nanoseconds to a few milliseconds in the temperature range of 100K to 390K. The response time, defined as the time when the photocurrent decreased to half its maximum value, is in the sub-microseconds at room temperature, but increased to a few microseconds at low temperatures. The contact capacitance is suspected for this behavior. Slower decay components due to trapping at defect states were also observed.

This study analyzes the impact of most common impurities and dopants on the c lattice parameter for thin films of Gallium Nitride (GaN) deposited on basal plane sapphire. Both Mg (∼1017 cm-3) and Zn (∼3 × 1020 cm-3) doping were found to expand the c lattice parameter as much as +0.38% and +0.62%, respectively. On the contrary, Oxygen up to concentrations 9 1021 cm-3 is shown to replace N in GaN thin films reducing the c parameter only by a small amount. Incorporation of Si leads to a large decrease of the c parameter which can not be attributed to the different size of Ga and Si atom. It is suggested that doping alters the film stoichiometry by a predicted Fermi level dependence of defect formation energies. The impact of stoichiometry on c lattice parameter and the effect of hydrostatic strain on resistivity in undoped and doped GaN is discussed.

We report on the observation of optical quenching of persistent photoconductivity (PPC) in unintentionally doped n-type GaN films. The PPC is induced by subbandgap illumination between room temperature and 77K. The corresponding decay, which.is thermally activated, is substantially increased upon low energy illumination, e.g. illumination by wavelengths between 1O50nm and 700nm. We measure the saturation conductivity under simultaneous illumination with excitation and quenching light and find that some wavelengths can induce both excitation and quenching of photoconductivity. Additionally, we present a preliminary investigation of the spectral dependence of the quenching effect. A simulation indicates only a weak spectral dependence of the quenching cross-sections in the wavelength range from 470nm–1050nm.