Macrodefect-free, large, and thick GaN bulk crystals for high-quality 2–6 in. GaN substrates by hydride vapor phase epitaxy with hardness control

Abstract

On the basis of a novel crystal hardness control, we successfully realized macrodefect-free, large (2–6 in.) and thick +c-oriented GaN bulk crystals by hydride vapor phase epitaxy. Without the hardness control, the introduction of macrodefects including inversion domains and/or basal-plane dislocations seemed to be indispensable to avoid crystal fracture in GaN growth with millimeter thickness. However, the presence of these macrodefects tended to limit the applicability of the GaN substrate to practical devices. The present technology markedly increased the GaN crystal hardness from below 20 to 22 GPa, thus increasing the available growth thickness from below 1 mm to over 6 mm even without macrodefect introduction. The 2 and 4 in. GaN wafers fabricated from these crystals had extremely low dislocation densities in the low- to mid-105 cm−2 range and low off-angle variations (2 in.: <0.1°; 4 in.: ∼0.2°). The realization of such high-quality 6 in. wafers is also expected.