The impact of nitridation and nucleation layer process conditions on morphology and electron transport in GaN epitaxial films

Abstract

A systematic study has been performed to determine the characteristics of an optimized nucleation layer for GaN growth on sapphire. The films were grown during GaN process development in a vertical close-spaced showerhead metalorganic chemical vapor deposition reactor. The relationship between growth process parameters and the resultant properties of low temperature GaN nucleation layers and high temperature epitaxial GaN films is detailed. In particular, we discuss the combined influence of nitridation conditions, V/III ratio, temperature and pressure on optimized nucleation layer formation required to achieve reproducible high mobility GaN epitaxy in this reactor geometry. Atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy have been used to study improvements in grain size and orientation of initial epitaxial film growth as a function of varied nitridation and nucleation layer process parameters. Improvements in film morphology and structure are directly related to Hall transport measurements of silicon-doped GaN films. Reproducible growth of silicon-doped GaN films having mobilities of 550 cm2/Vs with electron concentrations of 3 × 1017 cm−3, and defect densities less than 108 cm−2 is reported. These represent the best reported results to date for GaN growth using a standard two-step process in this reactor geometry.