High Quality GaN Epitaxy Induced Nucleation by Ar Ion Implantation into Sapphire Substrate

doi:10.15541/jim20240286

Abstract

Abstract:

Gallium nitride (GaN) thin films are typically obtained on foreign substrates. Hetero-epitaxial growth of GaN leads to high density of threading dislocations, which poses a significant challenge to promote high-performance electronic device and photoelectric device based on these films. This research used Ar-ion implantation pretreatment on sapphire substrates to induce high-quality nucleation, reducing the dislocation density in GaN epitaxial layers. By optimizing the dosage of Ar ions, it was found that when the Ar ion dosage was 1×10¹¹ cm^-2, the screw dislocation density was 5.26×10⁷ cm^-2, and the edge dislocation density was 1.95×10⁸ cm^-2, the total dislocation density decreased by 65% compared to GaN grown on traditional sapphire substrate. Photoluminescence spectra realized that the optical performance of the GaN epitaxial layer with induced nucleation was also improved. In contrast to the untreated sample, the photoluminescence strength increased by 152%. Therefore, all above results indicate that the Ar ion induced nucleation technique proposed in this study is a simple and effective method that can be used to improve the crystal quality of GaN layers. This is of great significance for achieving high-efficiency GaN-based LEDs and high-performance electronic devices.

Key words: GaN, ion implantation, induced nucleation, epitaxy

CLC Number:

TM23

AN Xia, XU Shengrui, TAO Hongchang, SU Huake, YANG He, XU Kang, XIE Lei, JIA Jingyu, ZHANG Jincheng, HAO Yue. High Quality GaN Epitaxy Induced Nucleation by Ar Ion Implantation into Sapphire Substrate[J]. Journal of Inorganic Materials, 2025, 40(1): 91-96.

Figures/Tables 7

Fig. 1 GaN epitaxial structure

Fig. 2 Rocking curves of samples on the (002)/(102) crystal planes (a) (002); (b) (102). Colorful figures are available on website

Table 1 Comparison of the results of different methods to improve the crystal quality of GaN thin film

Method	FWHM_(002)/(102)/arcsec	Total dislocation density/(×10⁸, cm^-2)	Ref.
Sputtered AlN NL	201/225	3.50	[21]
Al/Ti metal mask by ELOG	341/350	8.80	[22]
AlN NL by MBE	300/400	10.30	[23]
Al-ion implantation pretreatment on sapphire substrates	204/187	2.69	[17]
Ar-ion implantation pretreatment on sapphire substrates	161.9/191.7	2.47	This work

Fig. 3 AFM images of samples (a) Control sample; (b) Sample A; (c) Sample B; (d) Sample C

Fig. 4 PL spectra of samples

Fig. 5 Raman spectra of samples

Fig. 6 AFM image of sapphire substrate with ion implantation

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