Specific features of NH₃ and plasma-assisted MBE in the fabrication of III-N HEMT heterostructures

Abstract

The specific features of how nitride HEMT heterostructures are produced by NH₃ and plasma-assisted (PA) molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) are considered. It is shown that the use of high-temperature AlN/AlGaN buffer layers grown with ammonia at extremely high temperatures (up to 1150°C) can drastically improve the structural perfection of the active GaN layers and reduce the dislocation density in these layers to values of 9 × 10⁸−1 × 10⁹ cm⁻². The use of buffer layers of this kind makes it possible to obtain high-quality GaN/AlGaN heterostructures by both methods. At the same time, in contrast to ammonia MBE which is difficult to apply at T < 500°C (because of the low efficiency of ammonia decomposition), PA MBE is rather effective at low temperatures, e.g., for the growth of InAlN layers lattice-matched with GaN. The results obtained in the MBE growth of AlN/AlGaN/GaN/InAlN heterostructures by both PA-MBE and NH₃-MBE with an extremely high ammonia flux are demonstrated.