ECR Plasma in Growth of Cubic GaN by Low Pressure MOCVD

To heteroepitaxally grow the crystalline cubic-GaN (c-GaN) film on the substrates with large lattice mismatch is basically important for fabricating the blue or ultra-violet laser diodes based on cubic group III nitride materials. We have obtained the crystalline c-GaN film and the heteroepitaxial interface between c-Gan and GaAs(001) substrate by the ECR Plasma-Assisted Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (PA-MOCVD) under low-pressure and low-temperature (600°C) on a homemade ECR-plasma Semiconductor Processing Device (ESPD). In order to decrease the growth temperature, the ECR plasma source was adopted as the activated nitrogen source, therefore the working pressure of MOCVD was decreased down to the region less than 1 Pa. To eliminate the damages from energetic ions of current plasma source, a Multi-cusp cavity-coupling ECR Plasma source (MEP) was selected to use in our experiment. To decrease the strain and dislocations induced from the large lattice mismatch between c-GaN and GaAs substrate, the plasma pretreatment procedure i.e., the initial growth technique was investigated. The experiment arrangements, the characteristics of plasma and the growth procedure, the characteristics of c-GaN film and interface between c-GaN and GaAs(001), and the roles of ECR plasma are described in this contribution.