Plasma-assisted electroepitaxy as a method for the growth of GaN layers

Plasma‐assisted electroepitaxy of GaN layers

“…We observed clear evidence for the formation of GaN nucleation islands on the surface of sapphire substrates after PAEE growth times of a few hours. We confirmed the growth of GaN using XRD and PL studies [11,12]. The aim of the current study is to look at the growth by PAEE of GaN on GaN templates.…”

“…Any remaining traces of Ga were removed from the surface ex-situ after the PAEE growth by prolong etching in hydrochloric acid (HCl) (36%) at room temperature for ~15 h. Figure 2 shows a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of the surface of the sample after PAEE growth of GaN on a GaN MOVPE template for 15 h with a current of 50 A. We observe a different type of GaN nucleation on the GaN template than seen previously on clean sapphire [11,12]. On the GaN template we obtained a more uniform GaN nucleation across the surface.…”

“…We have designed and built a new growth chamber which allows us to combine the PA-MBE process with an LPEE system [11,12]. We have used an Oxford Applied Research HD60 RF plasma source to generate active nitrogen in our PAEE system.…”

“…The boat is made from graphite and pyrolytic boron nitride (PBN) [11,12]. The diameter of the Ga melt is 1 cm.…”

“…We have called this method plasma-assisted electroepitaxy (PAEE) [11]. Recently we demonstrated that it is possible to achieve GaN nucleation on sapphire substrates by PAEE at growth temperatures as low as ~450 o C [11,12]. We initially performed the growth on (0001) sapphire substrates, because this demonstrates unambiguously the possibility of the PAEE process working.…”