Band alignment at AlN/Si (111) and (001) interfaces

Journal Article · Tue Jul 28 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · Journal of Applied Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4927515· OSTI ID:22494667

Davis, Robert F. ^[1]; Nemanich, Robert J. ^[2]

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1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695 (United States)
2. Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695 (United States)

To advance the development of III-V nitride on silicon heterostructure semiconductor devices, we have utilized in-situ x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to investigate the chemistry and valence band offset (VBO) at interfaces formed by gas source molecular beam epitaxy of AlN on Si (001) and (111) substrates. For the range of growth temperatures (600–1050 °C) and Al pre-exposures (1–15 min) explored, XPS showed the formation of Si-N bonding at the AlN/Si interface in all cases. The AlN/Si VBO was determined to be −3.5 ± 0.3 eV and independent of the Si orientation and degree of interfacial Si-N bond formation. The corresponding AlN/Si conduction band offset (CBO) was calculated to be 1.6 ± 0.3 eV based on the measured VBO and band gap for wurtzite AlN. Utilizing these results, prior reports for the GaN/AlN band alignment, and transitive and commutative rules for VBOs, the VBO and CBO at the GaN/Si interface were determined to be −2.7 ± 0.3 and −0.4 ± 0.3 eV, respectively.

• OSTI ID: 22494667
• Journal Information: Journal of Applied Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Applied Physics Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 118; ISSN JAPIAU; ISSN 0021-8979
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ALIGNMENT
ALUMINIUM NITRIDES
CHEMICAL BONDS
CRYSTAL GROWTH
EV RANGE
GALLIUM NITRIDES
GRAIN ORIENTATION
INTERFACES
MOLECULAR BEAM EPITAXY
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SILICON
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
VALENCE
X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY