Substrates Manipulation and Epitaxial Growth of Gallium Nitride Thin Films

Abstract

<p>Light emitting diode (LED)-based solid state displays (SSD) have attracted growing interest due to their advantages in terms of contrast ratio, brightness, viewing angle, and response time compared to liquid crystal displays. GaN based III-nitride thin film materials are suitable materials for SSD due to their wide and tunable bandgaps. However, the large size and costly manufacturing process of commercially available GaN-based LED chips limit the potential uses of LEDs as the pixels of SSD.</p> <p>In this work, tiny single crystal beta-phase (111) oriented SiC whiskers 2 microns in diameter and 18 microns in length are proposed as the substrates for GaN growth due to their small lattice constant mismatch (3%) with GaN, their conductive nature and their small size for potential use in SSD pixels. Aligned SiC whiskers with (111) planes exposed in an alumina matrix prepared by a precise manipulation and alignment method of SiC whiskers including a series of steps was developed in this work. The alignment degree of whiskers achieved in this work is higher than conventional extrusion methods, and a sintering approach capable of forming an aligned alumina/SiC composite was developed and understood using a self-limiting oxidation reaction mechanism.</p> <p>To take advantage of the potential versatility, scalability and cost effectiveness of sputtering for SSD manufacturing, a reactive sputtering system was built for a detailed investigation of GaN thin film growth nucleation and subsequent growth behavior on SiC. 6H-SiC single crystal substrates were chosen as a reference substrate for SiC whiskers. An XRRC indicates that a high quality single crystalline GaN thin film was successfully grown epitaxially on 6H-SiC by sputtering. Two-dimensional X-ray diffraction and scanning transmission electron microscopy results demonstrated that the epitaxial growth of GaN thin films relies on the short range order and/or crystalline area of the native oxide layer in GaN/SiC interface for the first time.</p>