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Intersecting basal plane and prismatic stacking fault structures and their formation mechanisms in GaN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Jie Bai ,
X. Huang  and
M. Dudley
Jie Bai
Affiliation:
jbai@ic.sunysb.edu, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, 314 Old Engineering Bldg., Stony Brook, NY, 11794-2275, United States, 631-827-6482, 631-632-8052
X. Huang
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794-2275, U.S.A
M. Dudley
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794-2275, U.S.A
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Abstract

Comparative TEM studies have been carried out on GaN/AlN epifilms grown on both on-axis and off-cut 6H-SiC substrates to study the defects formed in the GaN/AlN films and the state of strain relaxation at the interface. Prismatic Stacking Faults (PSFs) are observed to form at I1 type substrate steps in both the on-axis and vicinal samples. In the vicinal samples, the PSFs expand into GaN/AlN film forming intersecting stacking fault configurations comprising faults that fold back and forth from the basal plane (I1 Basal-Plane Stacking Faults; BSFs) to the prismatic plane (PSFs). On the other hand, in the on-axis sample the PSFs are observed to mostly annihilate each other to form enclosed domains confined to the near-interface region. In addition, HRTEM studies suggest the existence of Geometric Partial Misfit Dislocations (GPMDs) at the SiC/AlN interface of the vicinal sample, which form at I2 type substrate steps. These GPMDs simultaneously accommodate the lattice mismatch and stacking sequence mismatch present at the SiC/AlN interface. This provides explanation of the improved strain relaxation observed in the vicinal versus the on-axis sample.

Keywords

III-Vdefectsepitaxy
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 892 , 2005 , 0892-FF22-02
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2006

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References

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