Nitride film growth morphology using remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Gallium nitride and indium nitride films have been grown by remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RPECVD) at temperatures between 570 and 650 °C for GaN and between 350 and 570 °C for InN on different substrates. For GaN vast improvements in film morphology and quality have resulted from reductions in background impurities when compared to previous reports. Epitaxial material can now be grown at 650 °C under optimized growth conditions. Columnar growth still occurs for growth on some substrates, however film coalescence is observed when using appropriate buffer layers and epitaxial growth can also be observed. High resolution SEM images show examples of this. The root-mean-square surface roughness of epitaxial samples, as measured using atomic force microscopy, shows values of as little as 10 Angstroms. While X-ray diffraction shows that these surfaces are not amorphous but have a strong (0001) preferred axis with FWHM limited by instrumental effects to (2θ) 0.085 degrees. The improvement in film quality has allowed heavily doped n-type films to be grown with an electron mobility of 160 cm ²/V·s for a carrier concentration of ∼ 1 × 10 ¹⁹ cm ^-3 at 650 °C. Moss-Burstein shifted absorption data confirms the high doping level. For InN film growth by RPECVD, columnar growth is commonly observed in the temperature region of interest for films grown directly on sapphire, however film coalescence and epitaxial films are also observed for this material. X-ray diffraction indicates very sharp (0002) peaks with FWHM of (2θ) 0.07 degrees. High resolution SEM images show examples of film morphology at different growth temperatures. Electron backscattered diffraction images indicate a wurtzite structure even for InN films with strong deviations from the accepted lattice parameters.