Abstract
We investigated the effects of SiN<sub>x</sub> interlayers on the structural and electrical properties of nonpolar <i>a</i>-plane (11-20) GaN grown on <i>r</i>-plane (1-102) sapphire substrates by metal–organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The Nomarski optical microscope images showed that the deposition conditions of the SiN<sub>x</sub> layer could strongly affect the <i>a</i>-plane GaN surface morphology due to the different SiN<sub>x</sub> coverage. Basal-plane stacking faults (BSFs) and threading dislocation (TD) densities were reduced in the <i>a</i>-plane GaN samples with high SiN<sub>x</sub> coverage and multiple SiN<sub>x</sub>-treated GaN interlayers. These results indicate that TD reduction is associated with an increase in the 3D growth step and with the blocking of TD propagation. From on-axis (11-20) X-ray rocking curve (XRC) measurements, the anisotropy of full width at half maximum (FWHM) can be attributed to the crystal mosaicity due to insertion of different SiN<sub>x</sub> interlayers. The anisotropy of sheet resistance between the <i>c</i>-and <i>m</i>-axis was also clearly seen in a-plane GaN samples with a high density of defects, which was attributed to the BSFs as scattering centers.
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