• Korean Journal of Crystallography
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.93-104
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• 2003

The crystals of group-Ⅲ nitride semiconductors with wurtzite structure exhibit a strong polarity. Especially, GaN has characteristics of different growth rate, anisotropic electrical and optical properties due to the polarity. In this work, GaN epilayer was grown and the polarities of the crystals were observed by the chemical wet etching and SP-EFM. GaN thin films were deposited on c-plane A1₂O₃ substrate under the variations of growth conditions by HVPE such as the deposition temperature of the buffer layer, the deposition time, the ratio of Group-V and Ⅲ and the deposition temperature of the film. The adquate results were obtained under the conditions of 500℃, 90 seconds, 1333 and 1080℃, respectively. It is observed that the GaN layer grown without the buffer layer has N-polarity and the GaN layer grown on the buffer layer has Ga-polarity. Fine crystal single particles were grown on c-plane A1₂O₃ and SiO₂, layer. The external shape of the crystal shows ｛10-11｝｛10-10｝(000-1) planes as expected in the PBC theory and anisotropic behavior along c-axis is obvious. As a result of etching on each plane, (000-1) and ｛10-11｝planes were etched strongly due to the N-polarity and ｛10-10｝ plane was not affected due to the non-polarity. In the case of the crystal grown on c-plane A1₂O₃, two types of crystals were grown. They were hexagonal pyramidal-shape with ｛10-11｝plane and hexagonal prism with basal plane. The latter might be grown by twin plane reentrant edge (TPRE) growth.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.154-158
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• 2001

The steps for the generation of very thin GaN films on ultrathin AlN/6H-SiC surface by alternating a pulsative supply (APS) of trimethyl gallium and NH3 gases have been examined by ASED-MO calculations. We postulate that the gallium cul ster was formed with the evaporation of CH4 gases via the decomposition of trimethyl gallium (TMG), dimethyl gallium (DMG), and monomethyl galluim (MMG). During the injection of NH3 gas into the reactor, the atomic hydrogens were produced from the thermal decomposition of NH3 molecule. These hydrogen gases activated the Ga-C bond cleavage. An energetically stable GaN nucleation site was formed via nitrogen incorporation into the layer of gallium cluster. The nitrogen atoms produced from the thermal degradation of NH3 were expected to incorporate into the edge of the gallium cluster since the galliums bind weakly to each other (0.19 eV). The structure was stabilized by 2.08 eV, as an adsorbed N atom incorporated into a tetrahedral site of the Ga cluster. This suggests that the adhesion of the initial layer can be reinforced by the incorporation of nitrogen atom through the formation of large grain boundary GaN crystals at the early stage of GaN film growth.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.526-531
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• 1998

A hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) method was performed to grow the $10~240\mu{m}$ thick GaN films on (111) spinel $MgAl_2O_4$ substrate. The GaN films on $MgAl_2O_4$ substrate revealed a photoluminescence (PL) characteristics of the impurity doped GaN by the out-diffusion and auto-doping of Mg from $MgAl_2O_4$ substrate during GaN growth. The PL spectrum measured at 10K consists of free and bound excitons related recombination transitions and impurity-related donor-acceptor pair recombination and its phonon replicas. However, the deep-level related yellow band emission was not observed. The peak energy of neutral donor bound excitonic emission and the frequency of Raman $E_2$ mode were exponentially decreased with increasing the GaN thicknesses. and the frequency of E, Raman mode was shifted with the relation of $\Delta$$\omega$=3.93$\sigma$($cm^{-1}$/GPa), where l1 (GPa) is the residual strain in the GaN epilayers.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.40 no.7
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• pp.652-656
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• 2003

The green emitting phosphor, BnGa$_2$O$_4$:Mn thin films with spinel structure were deposited by rf magnetron sputtering at various Ar/O$_2$ ratios. Thin film phosphors were heat-treated in air and $N_2$+vacuum atmosphere, respectively. Effects of Ar/O$_2$ ratios and annealing conditions on the structural and photoluminescence (PL) and cathodeluminescence (CL) properties were investigated. Luminous properties were more improved by inhibiting the films from contacting with oxygen during heat treatment.

• Current Applied Physics
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1558-1563
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• 2018

We demonstrate improved surface pit and phase separation in thick InGaN grown on a GaN/Si (111) substrate, using plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy with an indium modulation technique. The formation of surface pit and compositional inhomogeneity in the InGaN epilayer are investigated using atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and temperature-dependent photoluminescence. Indium elemental mapping directly reveals that poor compositional homogeneity occurs near the pits. The indium-modulation epitaxy of InGaN minimizes the surface indium segregation, leading to the reduction in pit density and size. The phase separation in InGaN with a higher pit density is significantly suppressed, suggesting that the pit formation and the phase separation are correlated. We propose an indium migration model for the correlation between surface pit and phase separation in InGaN.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2001.06b
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• pp.213-216
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• 2001

The use of a thin film of indium between the ITO and the $n^{+}$-InP contact layers for InP/InGaAs HPTs was studied without degrading its excellent optical transmittance properties. ITO/$n^{+}$-InP ohmic contact was successfully achieved by the deposition of Indium and thermal annealing. The specific contact resistance of about 6.6$\times$$10^{-4}$$\Omega\textrm{cm}^2$ was measured by use of the transmission line method (TLM). However, as the thermal annealing was just performed to ITO/$n^{+}$-InP contact without the deposition of Indium between ITO and $n^{+}$-InP, it exhibited schottky characteristics. In the applications, the DC characteristics of InP/InGaAs HPTs with ITO emitter contacts was compared with that of InP/InGaAs HBTs with the opaque emitter contacts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.157-157
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• 2010

Vertical-structure light-emitting diodes (V-LEDs) by laser lift-off (LLO) have been exploited for high-efficiency GaN-based LEDs of solid-state lightings. In V-LEDs, emitted light from active regions is reflected-up from reflective ohmic contacts on p-GaN. Therefore, silver (Ag) is very suitable for reflective contacts due to its high reflectance (>95%) and surface plasmon coupling to visible light emissions. In addition, low contact resistivity has been obtained from Ag-based ohmic contacts annealed in oxygen ambient. However, annealing in oxygen ambient causes Ag to be oxidized and/or agglomerated, leading to degradation in both electrical and optical properties. Therefore, preventing Ag from oxidation and/or agglomeration is a key aspect for high-performance V-LEDs. In this work, we demonstrate the enhanced thermal stability of Ag-based Ohmic contact to p-GaN by reducing the thermal compressive stress. The thermal compressive stress due to the large difference in CTE between GaN ($5.6{\times}10^{-6}/^{\circ}C$) and Ag ($18.9{\times}10^{-6}/^{\circ}C$) accelerate the diffusion of Ag atoms, leading to Ag agglomeration. Therefore, by increasing the additional residual tensile stress in Ag film, the thermal compressive stress could be reduced, resulting in the enhancement of Ag agglomeration resistance. We employ the thin Ni layer in Ag film to form Ni/Ag mutli-layer structure, because the lattice constant of NiO ($4.176\;{\AA}$ is larger than that of Ag ($4.086\;{\AA}$). High-resolution symmetric and asymmetric X-ray diffraction was used to measure the in-plane strain of Ag films. Due to the expansion of lattice constant by oxidation of Ni into NiO layer, Ag layer in Ni/Ag multi-layer structure was tensilely strained after annealing. Based on experimental results, it could be concluded that the reduction of thermal compressive stress by additional tensile stress in Ag film plays a critical role to enhance the thermal stability of Ag-based Ohmic contact to p-GaN.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.1306-1311
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• 2020

In this study, we proposed an anti-reflective nano-structure to improve the photoresponsivity of AlGaN UV photodiode that can be used as a receiver in a solar blind UV optical communication system. The anti-reflective nano-structure was fabricated by forming Ni nano-clusters on SiO2 film followed by etching the underneath SiO2 film. A sample with the anti-reflective nano-structure exhibited lower surface reflection along with less dependency on the wavelength in comparison with a sample without the nano-structure. Finally, a UV photodiode was fabricated by applying an anti-reflective structure produced by heat-treating a 2 nm-thick Ni layer. The photodiode fabricated with the proposed nano-structure exhibited noticeable improvement in the photoresponsivity at the wavelength range from 240 nm to 270 nm in comparison with the same photodiode with a SiO2 film without the nano-structure.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.37-41
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• 2010

The authors investigated the photoluminescence (PL) and the electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) from an magnesium (Mg)-doped GaN thin film with a delta-doped layer. The regularly doped sample shows a PL peak at 2.776 eV for the as-grown sample, and the peak shifts to 2.904 eV and increases in intensity for the annealed sample. The delta-doped sample also shows the same PL peak as does the regularly doped sample. However, only the annealed delta-doped layer shows a sharp EPR with a small isotropic Lande g-factor, $g_{II}$, of 2.029. This resonance is attributed to the delta-doped layer, which forms a hole-bound Mg-N atomic structure instead of the $Mg_{Ga}-V_N$ defect complex, indicating that the delta-doped sample was not optically activated to form PL centers but was instead electrically activated to form a hole-bound state.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.691-697
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• 2000

$Al_xGa_{1-x}N$ thin layers are promising materials for optical devices in the UV regions. $Al_xGa_{1-x}N$ thin layers w were grown on sapphire substrates by metalorgaruc chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The molar Al fraction and crystallinity of layers were deduced from synchrotron x-ray scattering experiment. Surface morphology were investigated using SEM and SPM. $Al_xGa_{1-x}N$ layers crystallinity were related with undoped GaN crystallinity. The Al mole fraction of $Al_xGa_{1-x}N$ layers affect the surface morphology of $Al_xGa_{1-x}N$ layers. The surface morphology was rough­e ened and the cracks were obse$\pi$ed by increasing the Al mole fractions.