Self-organized propagation of dislocations in GaN films during epitaxial lateral overgrowth

Abstract

Dislocation propagation and defect evolution in GaN films formed by epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) are examined by transmission electron microscopy. A novel effect that induces self-organized propagation of preexisting dislocations in ELO films is evaluated. This propagation forms dislocations into bundle structures along the stripes of masks used for ELO. The dislocation bundling gives rise to crystallographic tilting in the overgrown region on the mask and leads to a total reduction of threading dislocation density in the film.