Annealing of the sputtered AlN buffer layer on r‐plane sapphire and its effect on a‐plane GaN crystalline quality. Issue 8 (17th July 2017) - Jinno, Daiki
Abstract : We demonstrated how annealing of the sputtered AlN buffer layer (sp‐AlN) on r ‐plane sapphire could be used to produce a high‐crystalline‐quality a ‐plane GaN ( a ‐GaN). The sp‐AlN with large grains was confirmed by annealing at 1600 °C in N2 ambient, consequently its crystalline orientation and quality were significantly improved. Moreover, it was found that a ‐GaN grown on annealed sp‐AlN showed better crystalline quality, including a reduction of basal stacking fault density, than a ‐GaN grown on untreated sp‐AlN (as sputtered). The implication is that the a ‐GaN growth method using annealed sp‐AlN is an effective way to obtain high crystalline quality.