Effects of the pretreatment of Si substrate before the pre-deposition of Al on GaN-on-Si

Abstract

In this work, we report a method that the Si substrate is pre-treated in the atmosphere of high temperature AlN before the depositon of Al to improve the quality of GaN-on-Si, which is studied by few people. Compared to the untreated sample, the pre-treated one exhibits smoother surface morphology with a root mean square roughness (RMS) value of 0.580 nm and the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of GaN (102) plane also decreases from 1484 arcsec to 1303 arcsec. Moreover, we give an explanation for the extra shoulder peaks in the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum. This enhancement of quality and surface morphology of GaN can be attributed to the improvement of surface flatness of Si substrate, which contributes to the conversion of AlN to two-dimensional growth mode, leading to a smoother surface of GaN. And the reason for the improvement of Si substrate is also investigated in this work. • GaN with higher quality and lower dislocations was obtained on the Si(111) substrate with pretreatment. • Surface morphology of AlN grown on the Si substrate with pretreatment is improved greatly compared to the untreated one. • The cause of the shoulder peak in the PL spectrum of GaN is explained. • Reason for the improved surface morphology of Si with pretreatment is explained through the results of XPS spectra.