David A. Ewoldt

Dislocation filtering in GaN nanostructures.

Dislocation filtering in GaN by selective area growth through a nanoporous template is examined both by transmission electron microscopy and numerical modeling. These nanorods grow epitaxially from the (0001)-oriented GaN underlayer through the approximately 100 nm thick template and naturally terminate with hexagonal pyramid-shaped caps. It is demonstrated that for a certain window of geometric parameters a threading dislocation growing within a GaN nanorod is likely to be excluded by the strong image forces of the nearby free surfaces. Approximately 3000 nanorods were examined in cross-section, including growth through 50 and 80 nm diameter pores. The very few threading dislocations not filtered by the template turn toward a free surface within the nanorod, exiting less than 50 nm past the base of the template. The potential active region for light-emitting diode devices based on these nanorods would have been entirely free of threading dislocations for all samples examined. A greater than 2 orders of magnitude reduction in threading dislocation density can be surmised from a data set of this size. A finite element-based implementation of the eigenstrain model was employed to corroborate the experimentally observed data and examine a larger range of potential nanorod geometries, providing a simple map of the different regimes of dislocation filtering for this class of GaN nanorods. These results indicate that nanostructured semiconductor materials are effective at eliminating deleterious extended defects, as necessary to enhance the optoelectronic performance and device lifetimes compared to conventional planar heterostructures.

Built-in Electric Field Minimization in (In, Ga)N Nanoheterostructures

(In, Ga)N nanostructures show great promise as the basis for next generation LED lighting technology, for they offer the possibility of directly converting electrical energy into light of any visible wavelength without the use of down-converting phosphors. In this paper, three-dimensional computation of the spatial distribution of the mechanical and electrical equilibrium in nanoheterostructures of arbitrary topologies is used to elucidate the complex interactions between geometry, epitaxial strain, remnant polarization, and piezoelectric and dielectric contributions to the self-induced internal electric fields. For a specific geometry-nanorods with pyramidal caps-we demonstrate that by tuning the quantum well to cladding layer thickness ratio, h(w)/h(c), a minimal built-in electric field can be experimentally realized and canceled, in the limit of h(w)/h(c) = 1.28, for large h(c) values.

GaN nanostructure design for optimal dislocation filtering

The effect of image forces in GaN pyramidal nanorod structures is investigated to develop dislocation-free light emitting diodes (LEDs). A model based on the eigenstrain method and nonlocal stress is developed to demonstrate that the pyramidal nanorod efficiently ejects dislocations out of the structure. Two possible regimes of filtering behavior are found: (1) cap-dominated and (2) base-dominated. The cap-dominated regime is shown to be the more effective filtering mechanism. Optimal ranges of fabrication parameters that favor a dislocation-free LED are predicted and corroborated by resorting to available experimental evidence. The filtering probability is summarized as a function of practical processing parameters: the nanorod radius and height. The results suggest an optimal nanorod geometry with a radius of ∼50b (26 nm) and a height of ∼125b (65 nm), in which b is the magnitude of the Burgers vector for the GaN system studied. A filtering probability of greater than 95% is predicted for the optimal ge...

Bulk-Like Laminated Nitride Metal/Semiconductor Superlattices for Thermoelectric Devices

Bulk-like thermionic energy conversion devices have been fabricated from nanostructured nitride metal/semiconductor superlattices using a novel lamination process. 5-μm thick (Hf0.5Zr0.5)N (6-nm)/ScN (6-nm) metal/semiconductor superlattices with a 12 nm period were deposited on 100-silicon substrates by reactive magnetron sputtering followed by a selective tetra methyl ammonium hydroxide substrate etching and a gold-gold lamination process to yield 300 μm × 300 μm × 290 μm microscale thermionic energy conversion elements with 16,640 superlattice periods. The thermionic element had a Seebeck coefficient of -120 μV/K at 800 K, an electrical conductivity of ~2500 Ω-1 m-1 at 800 K, and a thermal conductivity of 2.9 and 4.3 W/m-K at 300 and 625 K, respectively. The temperature dependence of the Seebeck coefficient from 300 to 800 K suggests a parallel parasitic conduction path that is dominant at low temperature, and the temperature independent electrical conductivity indicates that the (Hf0.5Zr0.5)N/gold interface contact resistivity currently dominates the device. The thermal conductivity of the laminate was significantly lower than the thermal conductivity of the individual metal or semiconductor layers, indicating the beneficial effect of the metal/semiconductor interfaces toward lowering the thermal conductivity. The described lamination process effectively bridges the gap between the nanoscale requirements needed to enhance the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT and the microscale requirements of real-world devices.

Controlled Growth of Ordered Nanopore Arrays in GaN

High-quality, ordered nanopores in semiconductors are attractive for numerous biological, electrical, and optical applications. Here, GaN nanorods with continuous pores running axially through their centers were grown by organometallic vapor phase epitaxy. The porous nanorods nucleate on an underlying (0001)-oriented GaN film through openings in a SiN(x) template that are milled by a focused ion beam, allowing direct placement of porous nanorods. Nanopores with diameters ranging from 20-155 nm were synthesized with crystalline sidewalls.