Microstructural Characteristics of III-Nitride Layers Grown on Si(110) Substrate by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Nitrides-on-silicon structures are considered to be an excellent candidate for unique design architectures and creating devices for high-power applications. Therefore, a lot of effort has been concentrating on growing high-quality III-nitrides on Si substrates, mostly Si(111) and Si(001) substrates. However, there are several fundamental problems in the growth of nitride compound semiconductors on silicon. First, the large difference in lattice constants and thermal expansion coefficients will lead to misfit dislocation and stress in the epitaxial films. Second, the growth of polar compounds on a non-polar substrate can lead to antiphase domains or other defective structures. Even though the lattice mismatches are reached to 16.9 % to GaN and 19 % to AlN and a number of dislocations are originated, Si(111) has been selected as the substrate for the epitaxial growth of nitrides because it is always favored due to its three-fold symmetry at the surface, which gives a good rotational matching for the six-fold symmetry of the wurtzite structure of nitrides. Also, Si(001) has been used for the growth of nitrides due to a possible integration of nitride devices with silicon technology despite a four-fold symmetry and a surface reconstruction. Moreover, Si(110), one of surface orientations used in the silicon technology, begins to attract attention as a substrate for the epitaxial growth of nitrides due to an interesting interface structure. In this system, the close lattice match along the [-1100]AlN/[001]Si direction promotes the faster growth along a particular crystal orientation. However, there are insufficient until now on the studies for the growth of nitride compound semiconductors on Si(110) substrate from a microstructural point of view. In this work, the microstructural properties of nitride thin layers grown on Si(110) have been characterized using various TEM techniques. The main purpose of this study was to understand the atomic structure and the strain behavior of III-nitrides grown on Si(110) substrate by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Insight gained at the microscopic level regarding how thin layer grows at the interface is essential for the growth of high quality thin films for various applications.