Geometrically Controlled Microscale Patterning and Epitaxial Lateral Overgrowth of Nitrogen-Polar GaN

In this Letter, we report on a novel two-step epitaxial growth technique that enables a significant improvement of the crystal quality of nitrogen-polar GaN. The starting material is grown on 4° vicinal sapphire substrates by metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy, with an initial high-temperature sapphire nitridation to control polarity. The material is then converted to a regular array of hexagonal pyramids by wet-etching in a KOH solution and subsequently regrown to coalesce the pyramids back into a smooth layer of improved crystal quality. The key points that enable this technique are the control of the array geometry, obtained by exploiting the anisotropic behavior of the wet-etch step, and the use of regrowth conditions that preserve the orientation of the pyramids’ sidewalls. In contrast, growth conditions that cause an excessive expansion of the residual (0001̅) facets on the pyramids’ tops cause the onset of a very rough surface morphology upon full coalescence. An X-ray diffraction study confirms the reduction of the threading dislocation density as the regrowth step develops. The analysis of the relative position of the 0002̅ GaN peak, with respect to the 0006 sapphire peak, reveals a macroscopic tilt of the pyramids, probably induced by the large off-axis substrate orientation. This tilt correlates very well with an anomalous broadening of the 0002̅ diffraction peaks at the beginning of the regrowth step.