Understanding and controlling heteroepitaxy with the kinetic Wulff plot: A case study with GaN
- Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States); Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
This work represents a comprehensive attempt to correlate the heteroepitaxial dynamics in experiments with fundamental principles in crystal growth using the kinetic Wulff plot (or v-plot). Selective area growth is employed to monitor the advances of convex and concave facets toward the construction of a comprehensive v-plot as a guidepost for GaN-heteroepitaxy. A procedure is developed to apply the experimentally determined kinetic Wulff plots to the interpretation and the design of evolution dynamics in nucleation and island coalescence. This procedure offers a cohesive and rational model for GaN-heteroepitaxy on polar, nonpolar, and semipolar orientations and is broadly extensible to other heteroepitaxial material systems. We demonstrate furthermore that the control of morphological evolution, based on invoking a detailed knowledge of the v-plots, holds a key to the reduction of microstructural defects through effective bending of dislocations and geometrical blocking of stacking faults, paving a way to device-quality heteroepitaxial nonpolar and semipolar GaN materials.
- Research Organization:
- Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC); EFRC for Solid State Lighting Science (SSLS)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE SC Office of Basic Energy Sciences (SC-22)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 1065707
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Applied Physics Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 110; ISSN JAPIAU; ISSN 0021-8979
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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