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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
The morphology and the atomic structure of a hexagonal gallium nitride (h-GaN) grain boundary was investigated employing a conventional TEM and an atomic resolution high voltage transmission electron microscope (ARHVTEM).
GaN was grown on a patterned GaAs (001) substrate by the metalorganic vaporphase epitaxy (MOVPE) method using selective area growth (SAG) and epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) process. The pattern mask was aligned along [110] direction of the GaAs (001) substrate. Cubic GaN (c-GaN) grew in the window of the patterned substrate. h-GaN was nucleated on the {111} plane of the c-GaN and grew in the lateral direction to fabricate a grain boundary in the halfway between two masks. The resulting symmetric tilt grain boundary was a Σ 9 CSL boundary. The boundary plane was in most cases parallel to the {3308} plane. Structural analysis revealed that the boundaries consist of ordinary 6-memebered rings and some 5-membered and 7-membered rings. Additionally, the expected atomic bonding angle deviates from the experimental findings. The different bonding angle was attributed to contributions of ionic bonding in GaN.