We report on the growth and fabrication of nonpolar a-plane light emitting diodes with an in-situ SiNx interlayer grown between the undoped a-plane GaN buffer and Si-doped GaN layer. X-ray diffraction shows that the crystalline quality of the GaN buffer layer is greatly improved with the introduction of the SiNx interlayer. The electrical properties are also improved. For example, electron mobility and sheet resistance are reduced from high resistance to 31.6 cm2/（V· s） and 460 Ω/respectively. Owing to the significant effect of the SiNx interlayer, a-plane LEDs are realized. Electrolurninescence of a nonpolar a-plane light-emitting diode with a wavelength of 488nm is demonstrated. The emission peak remains constant when the injection current increases to over 20 mA.
Room-temperature ferromagnetism with a Curie temperature higher than 380 K was studied in GaN: Mn thin films grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. By etching artificial microstructures on the GaN: Mn layer,strong magnetic responses were observed in the magnetic force microscopy (MFM) measurement,which revealed that the films were independent of dopant particles and clusters. Numerical simulation on the data of atomic force microscope (AFM) and MFM measurements covering the whole microstructure validated the formation of long range magnetic order. This result excluded a variety of controversial origins of room-temperature ferromagnetism in the GaN: Mn and gave a strong evidence of our GaN: Mn as the intrinsic diluted magnetic semiconductor (DMS). The forwarded method for accurate characterization of long range magnetic order could be applied to a wide range of DMS and diluted magnetic oxide (DMO) systems.
