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In this paper, we report the use of three pendeo-epitaxy growth approaches as a way of reducing the threading dislocation density (TDD) of 20 × 20 μm2 GaN platelets to be used for the development of micro light-emitting diodes (μLEDs). The method relies on the coalescence of GaN crystallites grown on top of a network of deformable pillars etched into a silicon-on-insulator substrate. Our approach takes advantage of the creeping properties of SiO2 at the usual GaN epitaxial growth temperature, allowing the GaN crystallites to align and reduce the grain boundary dislocations. Furthermore, this bottom-up approach allows to get rid of the dry plasma etching step for μLEDs fabrication, which highly deteriorates sidewalls, reducing the efficiency of future displays. By optimizing the growth conditions and inducing asymmetric nucleation, a TDD of 2.5 × 108 cm−2 has been achieved on the GaN platelets, while keeping a smooth surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The difference of growth temperatures between InGaN quantum wells and GaN barriers has detrimental effects on the properties of the wells. Different capping processes of InGaN quantum well with a thin AlGaN layer have been investigated to prevent these effects. Both structural and optical properties of the samples, grown on c-plane sapphire substrates by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy, were studied through transmission electron microscopy (TEM), x-ray diffraction and room temperature photoluminescence. The average quantum well thickness and its indium composition were determined by digital processing of lattice fringes in cross-sectional TEM images. From the analysis of the well thickness distribution, it is shown that AlGaN as a capping layer helps to compensate an unwanted undulation at the upper InGaN QW-barrier interface. Moreover, when deposited at the same temperature as InGaN, the AlGaN layer is effective in avoiding or reducing the evaporation and/or diffusion of indium from InGaN wells, which results in the thinning of the well. It therefore helps to extend the emission wavelength up to 540 nm with a reduced degradation of the room temperature photoluminescence efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on the influence of a capping layer on the photoluminescence properties of self-assembled GaN quantum dots grown on an Al0.5Ga0.5N template. Self-assembled GaN quantum dots show a large quantum confined Stark shift and long carrier recombination time due to strong built-in spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization fields. Nevertheless, owing to strong carrier localization and suppressed nonradiative processes, these quantum dots have a high-quantum efficiency even at room temperature. Here, we show that the capping thickness has an important role on the optical properties of the GaN quantum dots. The radiative and nonradiative recombination processes of quantum dots are strongly affected by adjusting the capping thickness, and the GaN quantum dots with 12 monolayers-thick Al0.5Ga0.5N capping layer show a remarkably high internal quantum efficiency of more than 80% at room temperature. We also studied photoluminescence quenching and enhancement for surface (uncapped) quantum dots caused by photoadsorption and photodesorption of oxygen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on the selective area growth of semipolar (11-22) GaN epilayers on wet etched r-plane patterned sapphire substrates (PSS) by metal organic chemical vapor deposition. Using a three-step growth method, planar (11-22) GaN epilayers on 2 in. wafers with significant optical and structural quality improvements have been obtained. The filtering of basal stacking faults and dislocations was achieved by overlapping adjacent crystals and forming voids between them. These voids act as a barrier to defect propagation which results in reduced defect density at the surface of the epilayer. Cathodoluminescence measurements at 80 K revealed a dislocation density of 5.1×10 7 cm −2 and a basal stacking fault density below 30 cm −1 . Moreover, photoluminescence and X-ray diffraction measurements attested a material quality similar to conventional GaN on c-plane sapphire. Such large scale semipolar GaN templates are opening the way for efficient semipolar devices grown heteroepitaxially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yellow-emitting In x Ga 1− x N/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) with different pairs of In composition and QW thickness have been grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition on sapphire substrates. We show that a trade-off between the MQW crystalline quality and the quantum confined Stark effect has to be found to maximize the room temperature photoluminescence efficiency. With our growth conditions, an optimum design of the MQW is obtained for x =0.21 and a QW thickness of 3.6 nm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The behavior of a high density radical source for the plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy of GaN and AlGaN compounds is studied and compared with the one of a conventional plasma source. Plasma light emission correlates with the GaN growth rate. Both attest to the better efficiency of the new source for producing active nitrogen species with resulting growth rates well beyond 1 µm/h. The present study shows that GaN films with equivalent structural and optical quality can be grown even with a growth rate enhancement by a factor of 5. The purity of the grown films is investigated as well as point defects. Positron annihilation shows that plasma conditions can be tuned in order to limit the increase of the gallium-vacancy related complexes density by about 2x10 16 cm −3 while reaching growth rates as high as 2.1 µm/h. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Selective sublimation of p-GaN is developed to fabricate enhancement-mode HEMTs. • AlGaN regrowth drastically reduces access resistances in enhancement-mode HEMTs. • Sublimation and regrowth are combined to co-integrate E/D-mode GaN HEMTs. In the present study, the selective sublimation of the p-GaN cap layer of Al(Ga)N/GaN HEMTs is developed to replace the commonly used dry etching with no risk of damage in the barrier layer in order to fabricate enhanced mode transistors. Thanks to this approach, enhancement-mode transistors are fabricated with a threshold voltage between 0 V and +1.5 V depending on the barrier layer aluminum molar fraction and thickness. Furthermore, we show the benefit of the combination of selective sublimation with the regrowth of AlGaN to reduce access resistance in these transistors which can be co-integrated with depletion-mode devices fabricated in the same process in areas where p-GaN has been totally evaporated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]