Microstructures of InN film on 4H-SiC (0001) substrate grown by RF-MBE**Project supported by the Thailand Center of Excellence in Physics (ThEP) and the King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi under The National Research University Project. One of the authors (S. Sanorpim) was supported by the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) and the Thai Government Stimulus Package 2 (TKK2555), under

Abstract

InN film was grown on 4H-SiC (0001) substrate by RF plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (RF-MBE). Prior to the growth of InN film, an InN buffer layer with a thickness of ∼5.5 nm was grown on the substrate. Surface morphology, microstructure and structural quality of InN film were investigated. Micro-structural defects, such as stacking faults and anti-phase domain in InN film were carefully investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that a high density of line contrasts, parallel to the growth direction (c-axis), was clearly observed in the grown InN film. Dark field TEM images recorded with diffraction vectors and g = 0002 revealed that such line contrasts evolved from a coalescence of the adjacent misoriented islands during the initial stage of the InN nucleation on the substrate surface. This InN nucleation also led to a generation of anti-phase domains.