M. Imura

Microstructure of epitaxial lateral overgrown AlN on trench-patterned AlN template by high-temperature metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy

A high-quality thick AlN layer without cracks was grown on sapphire by the combination of the high-temperature metal-organic vapor phase epitaxial growth and epitaxial lateral overgrowth methods. The dislocation behavior and growth mode of AlN are investigated in detail. The dislocation density of the AlN layer thus grown was less than 107cm−2.

Flat (1120) GaN Thin Film on Precisely Offset-Controlled (1102) Sapphire Substrate

A high-quality thin (1120) GaN layer with an atomically flat surface has been successfully grown on a precisely offset-angle-controlled (1102) sapphire substrate by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. The insertion of an AlGaN layer between the underlying AlN layer and the GaN layer was found to improve the crystalline quality of the upper GaN layer.

AlN and AlGaN by MOVPE for UV Light Emitting Devices

The fundamental growth issues of AlN and AlGaN on sapphire and SiC using metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy, particularly the growth of AlN and AlGaN on a groove-patterned template are reviewed. In addition, the conductivity control of AlGaN is shown. The conductivity control of p-type AlGaN, particularly the realization of a high hole concentration, is essential for realizing high-efficiency UV and DUV LEDs and LDs.

Nitride-Based UV Lasers

The ultraviolet (UV) laser diode (LD) is attracting much attention for various novel applications such as in medical engineering, sterilization and high density optical storage. Group III nitrides are one of the most promising candidates to realize UV LD. The external quantum efficiency of group-Ill nitride-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with emission wavelength shorter than 360 nm is still far inferior to that of nitride-based visible-short-wavelength LEDs. Simulation results show that there is no theoretical barrier which hiders the realization of short wavelength UV LDs (Chow, 2005). At the moment, however, the shortest emission wavelength of nitride-based LD is limited to 343nm on SiC (Edmond, 2004) and 350.9 nm on a sapphire substrate (Iida, 2004). In order to overcome the barrier for emission wavelength and to realize much shorter wavelength UV LDs, in addition to the control of conductivity for both n-type and p-type layers, the growth of low-dislocation-density high-Al-content AlGaN with low internal loss is essential.

Group III nitrides grown on 4H-SiC (30 3 8) substrate by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy

The heteroepitaxial growth of a GaN single crystal by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy on a 4H-SiC (30 3 8) substrate was demonstrated. The crystallographic orientation of GaN was found to be dependent on growth pressure. When the growth pressure was 1000 hPa, the orientation of the GaN single crystal was consistent with that of the SiC substrate, where the c-plane of the GaN was single crystal tilted 54.7° from the surface plane. Then, we fabricated a violet-light-emitting diode (LED) with a GaInN multiple-quantum-well (QW) active layer grown on the GaN layer, which coherently grew on the 4H-SiC (3038 ) substrate. The blue shift of the peak wavelength with increasing injection current of up to 100 mA was confirmed to be two times smaller than that of a conventional LED on a c-plane sapphire substrate due to a low internal polarization.