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

Journal Article · · Journal of Applied Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4927515· OSTI ID:22494667
 [1];  [2]
  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, Vol. 118, Issue 4; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-8979
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English