Abstract
By introducing an aluminization process to achieve nucleation of nanowires (NWs), spontaneous growth of AlN NWs on Si substrates has been realized by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. The AlN NWs are grown from the nuclei formed by the aluminization process, and the NW density and diameter can be controlled by the aluminization parameters. The influence of growth conditions on the morphologies of AlN NWs is carefully investigated. Island-like films are found to grow between the NWs due to poor migration ability of Al adatoms. The films are proved to be Al-polar different from the N-polar AlN NWs, which can explain the absence of newly formed NWs. Increasing the V/III ratio can efficiently suppress the growth of Al-polar AlN films.
Highlights
AlN nanowires (NWs) on Si substrates appear to be free of crystalline defects due to their free surfaces which relax the elastic strain introduced by lattice mismatch
An Al flux was irradiated for a long enough time, reacting with β-Si3N4 at high temperature to form AlN islands as nuclei for AlN NW growth
For sample M, the NW density is 1.6 × 109 cm−2; by taking the criteria established by Fernández-Garrido et al [19], the density of Conclusions In conclusion, an aluminizing nucleation process has been demonstrated to improve the spontaneous growth of AlN NWs by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE)
Summary
AlN nanowires (NWs) on Si substrates appear to be free of crystalline defects due to their free surfaces which relax the elastic strain introduced by lattice mismatch. By introducing AlGaN heterostructures, AlGaN/AlN quantum wells or quantum dots in NWs can achieve high internal quantum efficiency even at room temperature, leading to the significant advances in single photon sources [4], electrically pumped nanolasers [5], and deep ultraviolet LEDs [6]. Daudin et al [8] successfully grew AlN NWs on Si (001) by introducing an amorphous SiO2 layer as a buffer layer to improve the AlN NW nucleation. They found that, by this method, the AlN
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