We report on an improvement in the crystal quality of GaN film with an Ino.17Alo.83N interlayer grown by pulsed metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, which is in-plane lattice-matched to GaN films. The indium composition of about 17% and the reductions of both screw and edge threading dislocations （TDs） in GaN film with the InA1N interlayer are estimated by high resolution X-ray diffraction. Transmission electron microscopy （TEM） measurements are employed to understand the mechanism of reduction in TD density. Raman and photoluminescence measurements indicate that the InA1N interlayer can improve the crystal quality of GaN film, and verify that there is no additional residual stress induced into the GaN film with InA1N interlayer. Atomic force microscopy measurement shows that the InA1N interlayer brings in a smooth surface morphology of GaN film. All the results show that the insertion of the InA1N interlayer is a convenient method to achieve excellent crystal quality in GaN epitaxy.
In this paper, the effect of alumina thickness on Al2O3/InP interface with post deposition annealing （PDA） in the oxygen ambient is studied. Atomic layer deposited （ALD） Al2O3 films with four different thickness values （5 nm, 7 nm, 9 nm, 11 rim） are deposited on InP substrates. The capacitance-voltage （C-V） measurement shows a negative correlation between the alumina thickness and the frequency dispersion. The X-ray photoelectronspectroscopy （XPS） data present significant growth of indium-phosphorus oxide near the Al2O3/InP interface, which indicates serious oxidation of InP during the oxygen annealing. The hysteresis curve shows an optimum thickness of 7 nm after PDA in an oxygen ambient at 500 ℃ for 10 min. It is demonstrated that both sides of the interface are impacted by oxygen during post deposition annealing. It is suggested that the final state of the interface is of reduced positively charged defects on Al2O3 side and oxidized InP, which degrades the interface.
Nonpolar （1120） GaN films are grown on the etched a-plane GaN substrates via metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. High-resolution X-ray diffraction analysis shows great decreases in the full width at half maximum of the samples grown on etched substrates compared with those of the sample without etching, both on-axis and off-axis, indicating the reduced dislocation densities and improved crystalline quality of these samples. The spatial mapping of the E2 （high） phonon mode demonstrates the smaller line width with a black background in the wing region, which testifies the reduced dislocation densities and enhanced crystalline quality of the epitaxial lateral overgrowth areas. Raman scattering spectra of the E2 （high） peaks exhibit in-plane compressive stress for all the overgrowth samples, and the E2 （high） peaks of samples grown on etched substrates shift toward the lower frequency range, indicating the relaxations of in-plane stress in these GaN films. Furthermore, room temperature photoluminescence measurement demonstrates a significant decrease in the yellow-band emission intensity of a-plane GaN grown on etched templates, which also illustrates the better optical properties of these samples.
An approach based on depth-sensitive skew-angle x-ray diffraction （SAXRD） is presented for approximately evalu- ating the depth-dependent mosaic tilt and twist in wurtzite c-plane GaN epilayers. It is found that （103） plane and （101） plane, among the lattice planes not perpendicular to the sample surface, are the best choices to measure the depth profiles of tilt and twist for a GaN epilayer with a thickness of less than 2 μm according to the diffraction geometry of SAXRD. As an illustration, the depth-sensitive （103）/（101） ω-scans of a 1.4-μm GaN film grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition on sapphire substrate are measured and analyzed to show the feasibility of this approach.
Significantly improved electrostatic discharge （ESD） properties of InGaN/GaN-based UV light-emitting diode （LED） with in- serting p-GaN/p-A1GaN superlattice （p-SLs） layers （instead of p-A1GaN single layer） between multiple quantum wells and Mg-doped GaN layer are reported. The pass yield of the LEDs increased from 73.53% to 93.81% under negative 2000 V ESD pulses. In addition, the light output power （LOP） and efficiency droop at high injection current were also improved. The mechanism of the enhanced ESD properties was then investigated. After excluding the effect of capacitance modulation, high-resolution X-ray diffraction （XRD） and atomic force microscope （AFM） measurements demonstrated that the dominant mechanism of the enhanced ESD properties is the material quality improved by p-SLs, which indicated less leakage paths, ra- ther than the current spreading improved by p-SLs.
