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The growth of high quality GaN by the ammonothermal method is appealing due to the potential to scale and achieve very high crystal quality. Several applications could benefit from the supply of very high quality GaN such as high power light emitting diodes, laser diodes, and high power electronics. Despite steady advancement by the few groups developing ammonothermal growth technology, high quality ammonothermal GaN wafers have yet be manufactured in great quantities. This paper reviews the current progress of ammonothermal growth at SixPoint Materials. Growths were performed at T <600 °C and P <300 MPa on GaN seed crystals produced by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE). For thin boules, <1 mm growth thickness, no cracking is observed. Historically however, SixPoint Materials’ ammonothermal growth on HVPE seeds eventually experiences a curvature flip giving extremely high radius of curvature at a critical thickness. As the growth continues the radius of curvature degrades and cracking is observed. Since IWBNSVIII, SixPoint Materials has improved the crack free area for 5 mm thick boules from 5 to 80 mm 2 to the complete seed area. This result is repeatable in multiple reactors. Careful selection of the HVPE seeds led to the greatest reduction in cracking. Seed selection combined with an additional technique has allowed boules to be grown crack free. X-ray diffraction was carried out on an ammonothermally grown boule at 90 points along a 44 mm line providing a mean (002) and (201) full width half max (FWHM) reflection of 29 and 35″ respectively using a beam spot of 0.3 mm x 0.3 mm and an open detector. The radius of curvature is typically between 3 and 20 m across the sample. Dislocation densities are routinely low 10 5 cm − 2 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • 2 in. GaN crystals and wafers were produced by ammonothermal method. • X-ray characterization method suggested to check surface and subsurface damage. • (1 1 4) X-ray rocking curves measurements for each step of back-end processing. • Lack of uniformity of surface damage from different companies and from sample to sample. Abstract SixPoint Materials has successfully switched to production of two-inch diameter GaN wafers using the ammonothermal method. Crystal quality values are high with dislocation densities typically in the low 105 cm−2. In efforts to produce true epi-ready material, investigations were made to develop a technique to study surface damage caused by the back-end process using X-ray diffraction methods. Analysis of peak tailing from X-ray rocking curves of the (1 1 4) reflection indicates the progression of surface damage during each step of the back-end process. For instance, the tailing can be partially represented using full width five thousand max (FW5000M) values. By using a peak with a low glancing angle, such as the (1 1 4) reflection's angle of 10.8662°, more of the X-ray beam is scattered in the surface region, providing an improved measurement of surface damage. Since this technique is non-destructive and can be performed without dismounting the sample from its ceramic back-end processing plate, it can provide information on the damaged layer at each stage of the back-end process. Using this technique to evaluate samples from various manufacturers, we found a lack of uniformity in surface damage from GaN companies. It is our hope that this technique will be adopted to better standardize surface damage measurements in the GaN field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the current progress of ammonothermal growth at SixPoint Materials and discusses some of the remaining challenges to commercialize the technology. The mass production of the ammonothermal grown wafers of GaN for high power devices has substantial commercial potential but is currently limited by two problems: impurities which lead to semitransparent coloration and stress in the crystals which leads to cracking. To improve the coloration, it is important to understand and reduce the impurities in the crystal. Oxygen impurities were found to be the primary source of coloration. By reducing the oxygen impurities the absorption coefficient at 450 nm was improved to 3.9 cm −1 yielding semitransparent crystals. The second and more serious issue is a cracking that occurs when thick boules are produced. Currently we routinely produce ammonothermal growth over a millimeter in thickness without any cracking. However, as the thickness increases cracks develop. From a production viewpoint, the production of thick crystals is beneficial since it allows a single wafer to be processed into many. By improving a variety of parameters, the crack density was reduced and the maximum crack-free growth increased from 1 mm to 2.6 mm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]