Pre-nitridation induced In incorporation in InxGa1−xN nanorods on Si(111) grown by molecular beam epitaxy

Abstract

We address the issue of obtaining high quality green emitting InGaN nanorods without any phase separation. Role of pre-nitridation of the Si(111) substrate and growth, temperature on the morphology, structural and optical properties of InxGa1−xN films grown by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy, has been studied. The nitrogen rich growth environment and surface nitridation results in the formation of vertically well-aligned single crystalline nanorods that are coalesced and isolated at 400 °C and 500 °C, respectively. In incorporation is also seen to be enhanced to ≈28% at 400 °C to yield a stable green emission, while the nanorods grown at 500 °C show blue band-edge emission. The orientation, phase separations, and optical properties characterized by Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy, high resolution x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and photoluminescence are corroborated to understand the underlying mechanism. The study optimizes conditions to grow high quality catalyst-free well-aligned InGaN rods on nitrided Si surface, whose band-edge emission can be tuned from blue to green by sheer control of the substrate temperature.