AlGaN based multiple quantum wells (MQWs) were grown on 8° vicinal 4H p-SiC substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. The MQWs were designed to emit near 300 nm using the wurtzite k.p model. The MQW periodicity and strain state were measured with X-ray diffraction. The optical properties were characterized with temperature dependent photoluminescence (PL). The internal quantum efficiency was estimated from the ratio of room temperature to 18K integrated PL intensity. Internal quantum efficiency up to 48% was achieved. These data are encouraging for future vertical and inverted ultraviolet light emitting diodes grown on p-SiC substrates.

The planarization of GaN has been mainly addressed by chemo-mechanical polishing methods in the literature. Such techniques were found to be successful in planarizing the nitrogen polar (000-1) surface of GaN. However, planarization of the gallium polar (0001) surface presents a challenge due to its higher degree of chemical inertness. Moreover, studies on the planarization of the remaining crystal orientations remain a topic with sparse representation in the literature. In this paper, we report our planarization studies of GaN films using an etch-back technique. Photoresist is employed as the sacrificial layer and a chlorine inductively coupled plasma (ICP) used for etching. We demonstrate the planarization of rough C-plane and A-plane GaN films grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE). Specifically, an rms roughness of approximately 2.1nm and 4.1nm was realized after iterative etch-back for a representative C-plane and A-plane sample with initial rms roughness of 134nm and 414nm respectively.

Lateral and vertical electron transport parameters were investigated in lightly doped n-GaN films, grown by MBE. Diodes were fabricated by forming Schottky barriers on n−-GaN films using a mesa-etched vertical geometry. Doping concentrations and barrier heights were determined, from C-V measurements, to be 8-9×1016 cm−3 and 0.95-1.0 eV respectively. Reverse saturation current densities were measured to be in the 1-10×10−9 A/cm2 range. Using the diffusion theory of Schottky barriers, vertical mobility values were determined to be 950 cm2/V-s. Lateral mobility in films grown under similar conditions was determined by Hall effect measurements to be 150-200 cm2/V-s. The significant increase in mobility for vertical transport is attributed to reduction in electron scattering by charged dislocations.

The effects of inductively-coupled plasma etching on the quality of ohmic contacts to etched n- GaN are reported. A high density chlorine plasma and a range of rf bias power levels (incident ion energies) are employed to etch n-GaN films with varying doping levels. Resulting plasma damage degrades contact ohmicity in all cases examined. At moderate levels of rf bias power the extent of this degradation for nitride layers with lower doping levels (mid-1017 cm−3) is similar to the degradation for nitride layers with higher doping levels. With increased rf bias, the degradation becomes more severe in films with higher carrier concentration. Annealing at 700 °C rapidly improves the contact quality. Studies of cumulative annealing time, up to 160 seconds, show that the improvement in contact quality takes place within the first twenty seconds of annealing.

Photoconductive detectors were fabricated on autodoped n-GaN films, with resistivity varying from 10 Ohm-cm to 107Ohm-cm, by molecular beam epitaxy. The mobility-lifetime product, determined from the measurement of photoconductive gain, was found to decrease monotonically from 10−2 cm2/V to 10−7 cm2/V as the dark resistivity was increased. This variation in the ντ products is attributed to changes in photocarrier lifetimes. In order to understand the recombination mechanisms responsible for this photoconductive behavior, the dependence of photoconductivity on excitation intensity (δμσ fλ) was investigated. The exponent λ was found to vary from 0.5 to 1.0, as the dark resistivity of the films increased. These results indicate the presence of exponential band tails extending from the conduction band edge. Furthermore, the dependence of photoconductivity on dark resistivity indicates that the photoconductive response is governed primarily by the location of the dark fermi level. A model accounting for these observations is presented.

We report on a comparative study of the growth of GaN in an arsenic free MBE system using either the method of plasma activation of molecular nitrogen or catalytic decomposition of ammonia on a heated substrate. We find that while growth with a plasma source leads to smooth films only under Ga- rich conditions, growth with ammonia leads to smooth films under ammonia-rich conditions. In both cases we find a 2×2 surface reconstruction when using an AlN buffer, which is evidence that material grown with this buffer layer has the Ga-polarity. In the case of plasma growth we also investigated the use of a GaNbuffer and found that at the growth temperature the surface is unreconstructed, however it undergoes 3×3 reconstruction upon cooling to 300 °C. This observation is evidence that material grown on a GaN buffer has the N-polarity.

Low frequency noise measurements are a powerful tool for detecting deep traps in semiconductor devices and investigating trapping-recombination mechanisms. We have performed low frequency noise measurements on a number of photoconducting detectors fabricated on autodoped n-GaN films grown by ECR-MBE. At room temperature, the noise spectrum is dominated by 1/f noise and thermal noise for low resistivity material and by generationrecombination (G-R) noise for high resistivity material. Noise characteristics were measured as a function of temperature in the 80K to 300K range. At temperatures below 150K, 1/f noise is dominant and at temperatures above 150K, G-R noise is dominant. Optical excitation revealed the presence of traps not observed in the dark, at room temperature.

Static induction transistors (SITs) are short channel FET structures which are suitable for high power, high frequency and high temperature applications. GaN has particularly favorable properties for SIT operation. However, such a device has not yet been fabricated. In this paper we report simulation studies on GaN static induction transistors over a range of device structures and operating conditions. The transistor was modeled with coupled drift-diffusion and heat-flow equations. We found that the performance of the device depends sensitively on the thermal boundary conditions, as self-heating effects limit the maximum voltage swing.

Lateral and vertical electron transport parameters were investigated in lightly doped n-GaN films, grown by MBE. Diodes were fabricated by forming Schottky barriers on n--GaN films using a mesa-etched vertical geometry. Doping concentrations and barrier heights were determined, from C-V measurements, to be 8-9×1016 cm-3 and 0.95-1.0 eV respectively. Reverse saturation current densities were measured to be in the 1-10times;10-9 A/cm2 range. Using the diffusion theory of Schottky barriers, vertical mobility values were determined to be 950 cm2/V-s. Lateral mobility in films grown under similar conditions was determined by Hall effect measurements to be 150-200 cm2/V-s. The significant increase in mobility for vertical transport is attributed to reduction in electron scattering by charged dislocations.

Static induction transistors (SITs) are short channel FET structures which are suitable for high power, high frequency and high temperature applications. GaN has particularly favorable properties for SIT operation. However, such a device has not yet been fabricated. In this paper we report simulation studies on GaN static induction transistors over a range of device structures and operating conditions. The transistor was modeled with coupled drift-diffusion and heat-flow equations. We found that the performance of the device depends sensitively on the thermal boundary conditions, as self-heating effects limit the maximum voltage swing.

Low frequency noise measurements are a powerful tool for detecting deep traps in semiconductor devices and investigating trapping-recombination mechanisms. We have performed low frequency noise measurements on a number of photoconducting detectors fabricated on autodoped n-GaN films grown by ECR-MBE. At room temperature, the noise spectrum is dominated by 1/f noise and thermal noise for low resistivity material and by generation-recombination (G-R) noise for high resistivity material. Noise characteristics were measured as a function of temperature in the 80K to 300K range. At temperatures below 150K, 1/f noise is dominant and at temperatures above 150K, G-R noise is dominant. Optical excitation revealed the presence of traps not observed in the dark, at room temperature.

In this paper, we report on the selective area growth (SAG) of GaN directly on patterned c-plane sapphire substrates by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE). A number of researchers have reported that the HVPE growth technique, unlike the MBE and MOCVD methods, is capable of producing device quality GaN films without the need for any low temperature nucleation/buffer layers. The density of edge dislocations in these HVPE films decreases dramatically as the film thickness is increased, and the dislocation density values for thick films (> 10μm) are comparable to those reported for the best GaN films grown by other methods on c-sapphire. These advantages of the HVPE growth technique makes it possible to achieve high quality selective area growth of GaN directly on c-sapphire substrates.

C-plane sapphire substrates were coated with PECVD SiO2 and photolithographically patterned with different size and shape openings. Subsequently, these patterned substrates were introduced in a horizontal, hot-wall quartz reactor for the GaN growth. It was observed that single crystal GaN growth was preferentially initiated in the openings in the oxide layer. This selective area growth was followed by epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO), leading to the formation of hexagonal GaN prisms terminated in smooth, vertical (100) facets. We have been successful in shearing these pyramid structures from the sapphire substrates as individual devices, which do not require any post-growth etching for feature definition. This procedure allows for the dramatic reduction of the process complexity and the duration and expense for GaN growth for device applications. Stimulated emission results on these self-formed optical cavities are also presented.

We report the growth of InGaN/AIGaN MQWs on c-plane sapphire by electron cyclotron resonance assisted molecular beam epitaxy (ECR-MBE). Two types of structures were investigated; one employing a GaN and the other a A1GaN barrier layer. The first structure consists of five periods of 80 Å thick In0.09Ga0.91N wells separated by 90 Å thick GaN barriers. The second structure consists of|seven periods of 120 Å thick In0.35Ga0.65N wells and Al0.1Ga0.9N barriers. The substrate temperature was kept constant during the growth of both the wells and the barriers, thus avoiding the need for any temperature cycling during the growth, which may lead to interfacial contamination. The films were characterized by cross sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM), room temperature photoluminescence (PL) and sub-micron resolution luminescence microscopy. TEM images show sharp and abrupt interfaces, thus confirming the high interfacial quality of the MQW structures. Both structures exhibit strong RT luminescence emission peaking at 387 nm (FWHM = 16nm) for the In0.09Ga0.91N/GaN structure and at 463 nm (FWHM = 28nm) for the In0.35Ga0.65N/A10.1Ga0 9N structure. The high resolution luminescence microscopy studies reveal that the radiative recombination for the InGaN quantum wells is 60–70 times more efficient than for the underlying GaN film.

We report the growth of AlxGa1−xN alloys on (0001) sapphire by the method of Electron Cyclotron Resonance-assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy (ECR-MBE). The films were doped n-type with silicon at carrier concentration levels from 1016 to 1019 cm−3. SEM studies reveal smooth surface morphology consistent with the observed 3×4 surface reconstruction in the RHEED pattern. Independent determination of the Al-concentration and the lattice constant of the alloys shows that Vegard’s rule is obeyed in the pseudo-binary GaN-AlN system. The bandgap of the alloys, determined by transmission and photoluminescence measurements, was found to depend linearly on Al-concentration.

We report on methods for the growth of GaN by MBE directly on 6H-SiC substrates. The films were doped p-type by the incorporation of Mg and the samples were characterized by studying their structure and morphology by RHEED, XRD and SEM and their recombination properties by photoluminescence measurements. The undoped films were found to be atomically smooth with 2×2 surface reconstruction and have an x-ray rocking curve with a FWHM of 3.5 arcmin. The photoluminescence spectra indicate that recombination is dominated by transition across the gap. The p-type doped films have a rocking curve with FWHM of 6.5 arcmin. and the majority of recombination occurs through D-A transitions at 3.26 eV.

We report the growth of InGaN alloys over practically the entire composition range at the growth temperature of GaN (700–800 °C) by MBE. We found that when the grown films are thick (> 0.3 μm), incorporation of more than about 30% indium results in phase separation of InN, which is consistent with spinodal decomposition. On the other hand we discovered that such phase separation is absent in thin InGaN films ( < 600Å) grown as GaN/InGaN/GaN heterostructures. In such configurations we were able to incorporate up to 81% In, which is the highest yet reported.

The epitaxial growth of wurtzite and zincblende GaN on (0001) sapphire and (001) Si by the Electron Cyclotron Resonance-assited Molecular Beam Epitaxy (ECR-MBE) method is discussed. We show that films can be grown in the layer-by-layer mode when growth occurs in Ga-rich regime. Surface roughening mechanisms are addressed. The similarity of photoluminescence data of Mg-doped wurtzite GaN films with those of undoped zincblende GaN films suggests that Mg doping facilitates the formation of stacking faults in the wurtzite structure which are nucleation sites for zincblende domains.

The microstructures of GaN films, grown on (001) and (111) Si substrates by a two-step method using Electron Cyclotron Resonance assisted-Molecular Beam Epitaxy (ECR-MBE), were studied by electron microscopy techniques. Films grown on (001) Si had a predominantly zinc-blende structure. The GaN buffer layer, grown in the first deposition step, accommodated the 17% lattice mismatch between the film and substrate by a combination of misoriented domains and misfit dislocations. Beyond the buffer layer, the film consisted of highly oriented domains separated by inversion domain boundaries, with a substantial decrease in the defect density away from the interface. The majority of defects in the film were stacking faults, microtwins, and localized regions having the wurtzite structure. The structure of the GaN films grown on (111) Si was found to be primarily wurtzite, with a substantial fraction of twinned zinc-blende phase. Occasional wurtzite grains, misoriented by a 30°twist along the [0001] axis, were also observed. A substantial diffusion of Si was seen in films grown on both substrates.

Reactive ion etching of GaN grown by electron-cyclotron-resonance, microwave plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on (0001) sapphire substrates was investigated. A variety of reactive and inert gases such as CC12F2, SF6, CF4, H2/CH4 mixtures, CF3Br, CF3Br/Argon mixtures and Ar were investigated. From these studies we conclude that of the halogen radicals investigated, Cl and Br etch GaN more effectively than F. The etching rate was found to increase with decreasing pressure at a constant cathode voltage, a result attributed to larger mean free path of the reactive species.

Tetrahedrally coordinated phases of boron nitride (c-BN and w-BN) were produced by reactive sputtering. The structure of the films was investigated by XRD and TEM diffraction, and found to be poly cry stalline. Films with microhardness up to 3500kg/mm2 were deposited but some degradation over time has been observed. A model for the stabilization of the tetrahedral phases over the graphitic one is proposed.