Process for growing epitaxial gallium nitride and composite wafers

US6563144B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• The Regents of the University of California · US

Inventors

• Eicke R. Weber · Oakland, US
• Sudhir Subramanya · Dublin, US
• Yihwan Kim · San Jose, US
• Joachim Krüger · Mülheim an der Ruhr, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Apr 2, 2001
• Grant date: May 13, 2003
• Expiry date: Apr 2, 2021

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y10S438/938
• WIPO field: Semiconductors
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A novel growth procedure to grow epitaxial Group III metal nitride thin films on lattice-mismatched substrates is proposed. Demonstrated are the quality improvement of epitaxial GaN layers using a pure metallic Ga buffer layer on c-plane sapphire substrate. X-ray rocking curve results indicate that the layers had excellent structural properties. The electron Hall mobility increases to an outstandingly high value of &mgr;>400 cm2/Vs for an electron background concentration of 4×1017 cm−3.