MOVPE growth and characterization of AlxGa1-xN layers on sapphire

AlGaN is an important material for the realization of nitride heterostructures, involved in most device designs. We have studied the growth of this alloy using low pressure MOVPE (76 Torr), and using triethyl-gallium (TEGa), trimethyl-aluminum (TMA1) and ammonia (NH3) as precursors. First the solid -gas aluminum segregation was studied in order to calibrate the incorporation of Al in the solid phase. We found that aluminum is more readily incorporated than gallium in the solid, leading to an apparent Al segregation coefficient greater than unity. A simple kinetic model is used to fit the experimental data. Scanning electron microscopy has been used to investigate the morphology of the samples through the whole range of Al content (x = 0 to 1), and we observe a clear evolution of the surface features versus aluminum concentration : at low Al contents, small (below 1 mu m) hexagonal holes are observed while at high Al, acicular features are observed, with a sudden transition between those morphologies around x = 0.5. Transmission electron microscopy was used to analyze the crystalline structure of these samples. Finally, the samples were studied by low temperature (2K) reflectivity and Raman spectroscopy. We report the evolution of the optical quality of samples (x < 0.4) versus Al content, as evaluated from the broadening of the observed excitonic transitions in the 2K reflectivity.