Origins of epitaxial macro-terraces and macro-steps on GaN substrates

Liao, Michael E.; Olsen, William L.; Huynh, Kenny; Luccioni, Dorian P.; Wang, Yekan; Huang, XianRong; Wojcik, Michael J.; Allerman, Andrew A.; Goorsky, Mark S.

doi:10.1063/5.0147667

Origins of epitaxial macro-terraces and macro-steps on GaN substrates

Journal Article · Mon May 08 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · Journal of Applied Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0147667· OSTI ID:2437754

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Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Washington, DC (United States)
Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Localized lattice distortions in GaN substrates can serve as nucleation sites for epitaxial macro-steps and macro-terraces. These detrimental macro-scale features give rise to optically hazy homoepitaxial GaN surfaces. After nucleating, these macro-features grow laterally along the surface and coalesce, leading to significant coverage of the wafer surface. Dot-core GaN substrates consisting of a periodic array of cores were used as a defect-engineered system, where dislocations are intentionally concentrated at the cores. The high density of threading dislocations at the cores induced localized lattice distortions. Here, these distortions are associated predominantly with lattice tilt on the order of hundreds of arcsec across ~0.5 mm laterally along the wafer surface. The resulting macro-features that nucleated at these localized distorted sites were made up of macro-terraces with lengths ranging ~30–~150 μm and macro-step heights ranging ~200–~400 nm. Another source of localized distortion was threading screw dislocations or GaN nanopipes that resulted in spiral growth and hillock formation. Based on x-ray topography and optical microscopy measurements, we speculate that the coalescence of hillocks evolves into macro-terraces and macro-steps. While previous studies focused on the substrate miscut as a means to control macro-feature formation, we show that localized lattice tilt from defects is another important contributor to macro-feature formation.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities (SUF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AR0001116; NA0003525; AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 2437754

Journal Information:: Journal of Applied Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Applied Physics Journal Issue: 18 Vol. 133; ISSN 0021-8979

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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