Polarity of Aluminum Nitride Layers Grown by High-Temperature Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition

Aluminum nitride (AlN) has a polar crystal structure that is susceptible to electric dipolar interactions. The inversion domains in AlN, similar to those in GaN and other wurtzite-structure materials, decrease the energy associated with the electric dipolar interactions at the expense of inversion-domain boundaries, whose interface energy has not been quantified. We study the atomic structures of six different inversion-domain boundaries in AlN, and compare their interface energies from density functional theory calculations. The low-energy interfaces have atomic structures with similar bonding geometry as those in the bulk phase, while the high-energy interfaces contain N-N wrong bonds. We calculate the formation energy of an inversion domain using the interface energy and dipoles' electric-field energy, and find that the distribution of the inversion domains is an important parameter for the microstructures of AlN films. Using this thermodynamic model, it is possible to control the polarity and microstructure of AlN films by tuning the distribution of an inversion-domain nucleus and by selecting the low-energy synthesis methods.

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Thermodynamics of inversion-domain boundaries in aluminum nitride: Interplay between interface energy and electric dipole potential energy

Zhang

Xie

Guo

et al. 2018

Journal of Applied Physics

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Void containing AlN layer grown on AlN nanorods fabricated by polarity selective epitaxy and etching method

Lee

Cheon

et al. 2021

AIP Advances

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Creating voids between thin films is a very effective method to improve thin film crystal quality. However, for AlN material systems, the AlN layer growth, including voids, is challenging because of the very high Al atom sticking coefficient. In this study, we demonstrated an AlN template with many voids grown on AlN nanorods made by polarity selective epitaxy and etching methods. We introduced a low V/III ratio and NH3 pulsed growth method to demonstrate high-quality coalesced AlN templates grown on AlN nanorods in a metal organic chemical vapor deposition reactor. The crystal quality and residual strain of AlN were enhanced by the void formations. It is expected that this growth method can contribute to the demonstration of high-performance deep UV LEDs and transistors.

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Polarity of Aluminum Nitride Layers Grown by High-Temperature Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition

Cited by 2 publications

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Thermodynamics of inversion-domain boundaries in aluminum nitride: Interplay between interface energy and electric dipole potential energy

Thermodynamics of inversion-domain boundaries in aluminum nitride: Interplay between interface energy and electric dipole potential energy

Void containing AlN layer grown on AlN nanorods fabricated by polarity selective epitaxy and etching method

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