Occurrence and elimination of in-plane misoriented crystals in AlN epilayers on sapphire via pre-treatment control

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/23/2/028101

Abstract AlN epilayers are grown directly on sapphire (0001) substrates each of which has a low temperature AlN nucleation layer. The effects of pretreatments of sapphire substrates, including exposures to NH₃/H₂ and to H₂ only ambients at different temperatures, before the growth of AlN epilayers is investigated. In-plane misoriented crystals occur in N-polar AlN epilayers each with pretreatment in a H₂ only ambient, and are characterized by six 60°-apart peaks with splits in each peak in (1012) phi scan and two sets of hexagonal diffraction patterns taken along the [0001] zone axis in electron diffraction. These misoriented crystals can be eliminated in AlN epilayers by the pretreatment of sapphire substrates in the NH₃/H₂ ambient. AlN epilayers by the pretreatment of sapphire substrates in the NH₃/H₂ ambient are Al-polar. Our results show the pretreatments and the nucleation layers are responsible for the polarities of the AlN epilayers. We ascribe these results to the different strain relaxation mechanisms induced by the lattice mismatch of AlN and sapphire.

Keywords: AlN misoriented polar nitridation

Received: 03 April 2013
Revised: 08 July 2013
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:	81.05.Ea	(III-V semiconductors)
	68.55.A-	(Nucleation and growth)
	81.15.Gh	(Chemical vapor deposition (including plasma-enhanced CVD, MOCVD, ALD, etc.))

Fund: Project supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant Nos. 2010CB923204 and 2012CB619302), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 60976042, 60906023, 61006046, 51002058, and 11104150), and the Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10990100).

Corresponding Authors: Fang Yan-Yan
E-mail: yanyan.fang@mail.hust.edu.cn

About author: 81.05.Ea; 68.55.A-; 81.15.Gh

Cite this article:

Wang Hu (王虎), Xiong Hui (熊晖), Wu Zhi-Hao (吴志浩), Yu Chen-Hui (余晨辉), Tian Yu (田玉), Dai Jiang-Nan (戴江南), Fang Yan-Yan (方妍妍), Zhang Jian-Bao (张健宝), Chen Chang-Qing (陈长清) Occurrence and elimination of in-plane misoriented crystals in AlN epilayers on sapphire via pre-treatment control 2014 Chin. Phys. B 23 028101

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Occurrence and elimination of in-plane misoriented crystals in AlN epilayers on sapphire via pre-treatment control

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