Atomic Structures of Inversion Domain Boundaries and Dislocations in Sintered ALN

Abstract

A1N is an attractive material because of its mechanical, thermal and electronic properties. However, these properties are often adversely altered by extended defects such as inversion domain boundaries (IDBs), and through impurities associated with the defects, especially oxygen. Thus to improve the properties of the material it is important to understand the structures of the defects. A number of studies have been carried out to characterize these defects using fringe contrast, weak-beam, convergent-beam electron diffraction and conventional high-resolution phase contrast imaging. These techniques all require the use of model structures for data interpretation. In this paper, we report a direct determination of the structures of IDBs and dislocation cores in A1N by highresolution Z-contrast imaging using a 300 kV VG HB603U scanning transmission electron microscope, with a probe size of 1.3 Å.