Morphology and optical properties of InN layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy on silicon substrates

Abstract

This work reports on the morphology and photoluminescence (PL) properties of wurtzite InN layers grown by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE) on AlN-buffered Si(111) substrates. The layer morphology can be controlled by the effective indium to nitrogen molecular flux ratio, from N-rich conditions that lead to columnar InN layers, to stoichiometric conditions leading to coalesced InN layers. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) rocking curves around the InN (002) reflection yield a minimum value of 682 arcsec full width at half maximum (FWHM) for a coalesced InN layer. PL intensity from columnar InN samples is two orders of magnitude stronger than that corresponding to coalesced material, pointing to a much higher crystalline quality of the former. PL spectra in columnar InN layers reveal an emission at 0.75 eV (16 K) that follows the typical band-gap temperature dependence and shows a linear trend with the excitation power, suggesting a band-edge recombination that yields an estimate of the energy gap for InN around 0.72 eV at room temperature. No other emissions are observed at higher energies. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)