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Enhanced structural and optical properties of high Al composition non-polar a-plane AlGaN epitaxial layer by optimizing growth flow sequence

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Abstract

The non-polar a-plane AlGaN epitaxial layer with an Al composition as high as 0.69 and enhanced structural and optical properties was successfully grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition technique under optimized growth flow sequence (GFS). Comprehensive studies were performed to investigate the impacts of GFS on the structural and optical characteristics of the a-plane AlGaN epitaxial layers. It was found that GFS notably influences the Al composition of the a-plane AlGaN, and the surface morphology, crystalline quality, and compositional homogeneity could be improved significantly by optimizing GFS. Significant reduction in the full width at half maximum (FWHM) value of (\(11\bar{2}0\)) X-ray rocking curves along both [0001] and [\(1\bar{1}00\)] directions, and the evident decrease in surface roughness and surface undulation were achieved under the optimized GFS. In addition, a superior optical transparency and a narrow near-band-edge emission peak with the FWHM value of 6.9 nm were achieved for the high Al composition non-polar a-plane AlGaN epitaxial layer grown under the GFS with synchronously injected trimethyl-aluminum and trimethyl-gallium flows but separatively fed ammonia flow. The enhanced structural and optical properties of the non-polar a-plane AlGaN epitaxial layer were ascribed to the increased migration ability and the well-ordered arrangement of metal adatoms in AlGaN.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Key Research and Development Project of Science and Technology Department of Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China (Grant No. BE2021008-4), the National Natural Science Foundation Program of China (Grant No. 62075038), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2242023K30035).

Funding

This study was supported by Key Research and Development Project of Science and Technology Department of Jiangsu Province, BE2021008-4; National Natural Science Foundation Program of China, 62075038; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, 2242023K30035.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Photonics Center, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Ruiting Fang, Xiong Zhang, Xuguang Luo, Lin Chen, Shenyu Xu, Zhiyi Lou, Yifeng Xu & Guohua Hu

  2. Changshu Institute of Technology, Changshu, 215500, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Shuchang Wang

  3. Jinling Institute of Technology, Nanjing, 211169, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Lin Chen

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  1. Ruiting Fang
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Contributions

Conceptualization: RF; Methodology: RF; Formal analysis and investigation: RF, XL, SW, LC, SX, ZL, YX; Writing—original draft preparation: RF; Writing—review and editing: RF, XZ, XL, SW, LC, SX, ZL, YX; Funding acquisition: XZ, GH; Resources: XZ, GH; Supervision: XZ.

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Correspondence to Xiong Zhang.

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Fang, R., Zhang, X., Luo, X. et al. Enhanced structural and optical properties of high Al composition non-polar a-plane AlGaN epitaxial layer by optimizing growth flow sequence. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1607 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-11015-3

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