Atomic Layer Epitaxy of III-Nitrides: A Microscopic Model of Homoepitaxial Growth

Abstract

We develop a microscopic theoretical model of AlN, GaN, and InN film growth by atomic layer epitaxy. To make the model realistic, we take into account the atomic hydrogen that is created by the hydrogen plasma commonly used in plasma-assisted atomic layer epitaxy. This growth technique relies on separate deposition steps for nitrogen and the group-III cation. Our model addresses the processes that occur after a complete monolayer of nitrogen has formed, that is, the deposition, adsorption, surface diffusion, island nucleation, and island growth of group-III cations. According to our model, the three nitrides grow in a standard and qualitatively similar manner: during a brief nucleation phase, a modest attractive interaction leads to stable island nuclei consisting of just a few atoms. These then grow in place at a nearly constant island density and with an island size distribution which obeys an expected universal scaling relationship that depends only on the critical island size.

Multiscale Kinetic Monte Carlo Simulation of Self-Organized Growth of GaN/AlN Quantum Dots

“…Concerning the KMC simulations, there exist just a few studies devoted to the growth of III-N wurtzite-type materials. They are, however, mainly focused on GaN homoepitaxy [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ]. To the best of our knowledge, nobody has reported KMC simulations of self-organized growth of III-N QDs so far.…”