The growth of hexagonal GaN-on-Si(100) using pulsed laser deposition

The growth of hexagonal GaN-on-Si(100) sample prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) was employed in the development of GaN-on-Si technology. In contrast to common GaN-on-sapphire and GaN-on-Si(111) technologies, the use of the GaN film on Si(100) by PLD provides low-cost and large-area single crystalline GaN template for GaN applications, via a single growth process without any interlayer or interruption layer. The evolution of GaN growth mechanism on Si(100) substrate with various growth times is established by SEM and TEM data, which indicated that the growth mode of the GaN films gradually changes from island growth to layer growth when the growth time increases up to 2hrs. Moreover, no significant GaN meltback was found on the GaN sample surface due to the high-temperature operation of PLD. The GaN sample was subjected to MOCVD treatment to regrow a GaN layer. The results of X-ray diffraction analysis and photoluminescence measurement show the reliability of the PLD-GaN sample and are promising for the development of the GaN-on-Si technology using PLD technique.