Epitaxial strategies for defect reduction in GaN for vertical power devices

Abstract: Group-III nitride materials, gallium nitride (GaN), aluminum nitride (AlN) and indium nitride (InN) have direct band gaps with band gap energies ranging from the infrared (InN) to the ultraviolet (GaN) and to the deep ultraviolet (AlN) wavelengths and covering the entire spectral range from 0.7 eV to 6.2 eV upon alloying. The invention of the GaN-based blue LEDs, for which the Nobel prize in Physics was awarded in 2014, has opened up avenues for exploration of IIINitride material and device technologies and has inspired generations of researchers in the semiconductor field. Group-III nitrides have also been demonstrated to be among the most promising semiconductors for next generation of efficient high-power, high-temperature and high-frequency electronic devices.The need to build a sustainable and efficient energy system motivates the development of vertical GaN transistors and diodes for applications with power ratings of 50-150 kW, e.g., in electric vehicles and industrial inverters. The key is to grow GaN layers with low concentration of defects (impurities and dislocations), which enables an expansion in both voltage and current ratings and reduction of cost. Despite intense investigations and impressive advances in the field, defects are still a major problem hindering exploiting the full potential of GaN in power electronics. This Licentiate thesis focuses on the development of two different epitaxial approaches in MOCVD for reducing dislocation densities in GaN with controlled doping for power device applications: i) growth of planar GaN layers trough NWs reformation, which can be further exploited as templates for a subsequent growth of thick drift layers and ii) homoepitaxial GaN growth. Special attention is put on understanding homoepitaxial growth under different nucleation schemes and thermal stability of GaN. We have established conditions in homoepitaxy to deliver state-of-the-art GaN material with low impurity levels combined with a reasonable growth rate suitable for growth of thick drift layers.The results are summarized in two papers: In Paper I we investigate GaN layers with different thicknesses on reformed GaN NW templates and highlight this approach as an alternative to the expensive GaN HVPE substrates. The sapphire used as a substrate limits to some extent the reduction of threading dislocations, however, the resulting GaN material presents smooth surfaces and thermal conductivity close to the bulk value, which suggests the potential of this approach to be integrated in GaN development as an active material for power devices on various substrates. In Paper II extensive study of homoepitaxial GaN growth by hot-wall MOCVD is presented together with results on the thermal stability of GaN under typical conditions used in our growth reactor. Understanding the evolution of GaN surface under different gas compositions and temperatures allows us to predict optimum homoepitaxial conditions. Analysis in the framework of Ga supersaturation of epilayers simultaneously grown on GaN templates and on GaN HVPE substrates reveals that residual strain and screw dislocation densities affect GaN nucleation and growth and lead to distinctively different morphologies on GaN templates and native substrates, respectively. The established comprehensive picture provides guidance for designing strategies for growth conditions optimization in homoepitaxy. We demonstrate homoepitaxial GaN-on-GaN grown under optimum growth conditions with state-of-the-art smooth surface with an rms value of 0.021 nm and an average TDD of 1.4·106 cm-2 which provide good basis for augmenting power device structures.Future work will be focused on GaN NWs reformation on different substrates, p- and n-type doping of homoepitaxial GaN with impurity control and the fabrication of pn power diode device structures for further processing and assessment by C3NiT partners.