Morphological properties of AlN and GaN grown by MOVPE on porous Si(111) and Si(111) substrates

Metal Organic Vapour Phase Epitaxy (MOVPE) of AlN and GaN layers at a temperature of 1080 C were performed on porous Si(111) and Si(111) substrates. The thermal stability of porous silicon (PS) is studied versus growth time under AlN and GaN growth conditions. The surface morphology evolution of the annealed PS is revealed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Porous Si(111) with low porosity (40%) is more thermally stable than porous Si(100) with relatively high porosity (60%).AlN layers with various thicknesses were grown under the same conditions on the two substrates. Morphological properties of AlN were studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and compared taking into account the two different surfaces of the substrates. The two growth kinetics of AlN were found to be different due to the initial surface roughness of the PS substrate. The effect of AlN buffer morphology on the qualities of subsequent GaN layers is discussed. Morphological qualities of GaN layers grown on PS are improved compared to those obtained on porous Si(100) but are still less than those grown on Si substrate.