Effect of growth parameters and local gas phase concentrations on the uniformity and material properties of GaN/sapphire grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy

The effects of flowrate variation and geometry on the growth rate, growth uniformity and crystal quality were investigated in a horizontal Gallium Nitride vapor phase epitaxy reactor. To better understand the effects of these parameters, numerical model predictions are compared to experimentally observed values. Parasitic gas phase reactions between group III and group V sources and deposition of material on the wall are shown to lead to reduced overall growth rates and may be responsible for inferior crystal quality. A low ammonia concentration is correlated with the deposition of polycrystalline films. A low V/III ratio and an ammonia concentration lead to poor crystalline quality and increased yellow luminescence. An optimum HVPE growth process requires selection of reactor geometry and operating conditions to minimize these parasitic reactions and wall deposition while providing a uniform reactant distribution across the substrate.