A crystallographic model of (00⋅1) aluminum nitride epitaxial thin film growth on (00⋅1) sapphire substrate

Abstract

High-quality thin aluminum nitride films were grown on different orientations of sapphire substrates by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. (00⋅1) AlN thin film grown on (00⋅1) Al2O3 has better crystallinity than (11⋅0) AlN on (01⋅2) sapphire. Full width at half maximum of a rocking curve is 97.2 arcsec, which is the narrowest value to our knowledge. A crystallographic model between AlN thin films and sapphire substrates was proposed to explain the process of crystal growth. ‘‘Extended atomic distance mismatch’’ which is the mismatch of atomic distance for a longer period was introduced. It is shown that the mismatch is relaxed by edge-type dislocations. Extended atomic distance mismatch was used to interpret the results that (00⋅1) AlN has better crystallinity than (11⋅0) AlN, but (11⋅0) GaN has better crystallinity than (00⋅1) GaN.