Investigation of (mis-)orientation in zincblende GaN grown on micro-patterned Si(001) using electron backscatter diffraction

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Waters, Dale M. and Thompson, Bethany and Ferenczi, Gergely and Hourahine, Ben and Cios, Grzegorz and Winkelmann, Aimo and Stark, Christoph J. M. and Wetzel, Christian and Trager-Cowan, Carol and Bruckbauer, Jochen (2025) Investigation of (mis-)orientation in zincblende GaN grown on micro-patterned Si(001) using electron backscatter diffraction. Journal of Applied Physics. ISSN 0021-8979 (In Press)

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Abstract

We present the application of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) as a technique for characterising wurtzite (wz) and zincblende (zb) polytypes of GaN grown upon micropatterned Si (001) substrates. The Si substrate is etched to create parallel V-shaped grooves with opposing {111} facets before the deposition of GaN. EBSD revealed that wz-GaN growth fronts initially form on the {111} Si facets before undergoing a transition from a wurtzite to zincblende structure as the two growth fronts meet. Orientation analysis of the GaN structures revealed that the wz-GaN growth fronts had different growth orientations but shared the same crystallographic relationship with the zb-GaN, such that ⊥{30¯38}wz ∥ ⟨110⟩zb, ⟨11¯20⟩wz ∥ ⟨110⟩zb and ⊥{30¯34}wz ∥ ⟨001⟩zb. Furthermore, the crystallographic relationship, {0001}wz-GaN ∥ {111}zb-GaN ∥ {111}Si, and alignment of the wz- and zb-GaN with respect to the Si substrate was investigated. The two wz-GaN ⟨0001⟩ growth directions were expected to coalesce at an angle of 109.5°, however measurements revealed an angle of 108°. The resultant misalignment of 1.5° induces misorientation in the zb-GaN crystal lattice. While the degree of misorientation within the zb-GaN lattice is low, < 1°, the zb-GaN lattice is deformed and bends towards the wz-GaN interfaces about the specimen direction parallel to the length of the V-groove. Further EBSD measurements over larger areas of the sample revealed that these results were consistent across the sample. However, it was also revealed that additional factors induce changes in the orientation of the zb-GaN lattice, which may relate to the initial growth conditions of the zb-GaN.

ORCID iDs

Waters, Dale M., Thompson, Bethany, Ferenczi, Gergely, Hourahine, Ben ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7667-7101, Cios, Grzegorz, Winkelmann, Aimo, Stark, Christoph J. M., Wetzel, Christian, Trager-Cowan, Carol ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8684-7410 and Bruckbauer, Jochen ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9236-9320;
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