Effect of ammonia/gallium ratio and growth temperature towards the surface morphology of semi-polar GaN grown on m-plane sapphire via MOCVD

Abstract

A single-crystalline semi-polar gallium nitride (11-22) was grown on m-plane (10-10) sapphire substrate by metal organic chemical vapor deposition. Three-step approach was introduced to investigate the grain size evolution for semi-polar (11-22) GaN. Such approach was achieved due to the optimized gallium to ammonia ratio and temperature variations, which led to high quality (11-22) oriented gallium nitride epilayers. The full width at half maximum values along (-1-123) and (1-100) planes for the overgrowth temperature of 1080°C were found to be as low as 0.37° and 0.49°, respectively. This was an indication of the enhanced coalescence and reduction in root mean square roughness as seen by atomic force microscopy. Surface analysis via atomic force microscopy indicated the orientation towards semi-polar plane. Field emission scanning electron microscopy analysis further indicates that higher temperature of 1080°C during the deposition of the overgrowth promoted closely packed surface coalescence. Room temperature Raman revealed that the overgrowth temperature of 1080°C portrayed compressive strain free as compared to other overgrowth temperature. Based on these results, the promising overgrowth temperature of 1080°C can be further utilized in future work for optoelectronics devices.