Patent Application: US-201414571826-A

Abstract:
described herein is a method for growing inn , gan , and aln materials , the method comprising alternate growth of gan and either inn or aln to obtain a film of in x ga 1 − x n , al x ga 1 − x n , al x in 1 − x n , or al x in y ga 1 − n

Description:
before describing the present invention in detail , it is to be understood that the terminology used in the specification is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments , and is not necessarily intended to be limiting . although many methods , structures and materials similar , modified , or equivalent to those described herein can be used in the practice of the present invention without undue experimentation , the preferred methods , structures and materials are described herein . in describing and claiming the present invention , the following terminology will be used in accordance with the definitions set out below . as used herein , “ low temperature ” means temperatures lower than 400 ° c ., and if otherwise specified can refer to yet lower temperatures such as lower than 300 ° c ., as lower than 280 ° c ., lower than 260 ° c ., lower than 240 ° c ., lower than 220 ° c ., lower than 200 ° c ., lower than 180 ° c ., and so on . indium precursors include trimethylindium ( tmi ) and others known in the art . aluminum precursor includes trimethylaluminum ( tma ) and others known in the art . gallium precursor includes trimethylgallium ( tmg ) and others known in the art . as used in this specification and the appended claims , the singular forms “ a ”, “ an ,” and “ the ” do not preclude plural referents , unless the content clearly dictates otherwise . as used herein , the term “ and / or ” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items . as used herein , the term “ about ” when used in conjunction with a stated numerical value or range denotes somewhat more or somewhat less than the stated value or range , to within a range of ± 10 % of that stated . inn layers were simultaneously grown using a cambridge nano tech ( cnt ) fiji 200 atomic layer deposition / epitaxy ( ale ) system on a - plane sapphire , semi - insulating si ( 111 ), and gan / sapphire templates . sapphire substrates were used to ensure unambiguous characterization of the electrical transport properties of the ale inn layers on an insulator . wafers were solvent cleaned and rinsed with deionized ( di ) water before any further surface pretreatments . si ( 111 ), gan / sapphire , and sapphire surfaces were pretreated with hf , hf and 15 % hcl , and solvents , respectively . the growth was carried out in an ultrahigh purity ( uhp ) argon ( ar ) ambient . after ex situ surface pretreatment , substrates were treated with the 50 sccm n 2 plasma at 300 watts before inn growth . about 150 to 1100 cycles of ale deposition ( see below ) were used to synthesize inn films on different substrates simultaneously . the values of parameters given in this paragraph are examples , with other values possible . fig1 shows variation of growth rate ( gr ) and in / n ratio with a trimethylindium ( tmi ) pulse of 0 . 06 seconds . the gr was decreased from 0 . 83 to 0 . 73 å with increasing temperature from 160 to 183 ° c . it remains constant for a small temperature window and decreases again to 0 . 51 å at 220 ° c . for t g between 220 - 260 ° c ., the gr remains constant . the temperature range between 220 - 260 ° c . is the second atomic layer epitaxy ( ale ) window . in the first low temperature ale window the inn growth is n - rich ( in / n & lt ; 1 ) and it is in - rich ( in / n & gt ; 1 ) for the high temperature ale window . an in / n ratio of 2 . 8 ± 0 . 7 has been measured on mbe grown inn ( see piper et al ., j . vac . sci . technol . a 23 , 617 ( 2005 )). thus , the ale inn has better stoichiometry . fig2 depicts the xrd peaks from three of the samples — namely inn ( 60 nm ) on gan / al 2 o 3 template with t g = 183 ° c . ( top ) and on a - plane al 2 o 3 with t g = 240 ° c . ( middle ) and 183 ° c . ( bottom )). in the bottom plot , there are a set of peaks that could be indexed to either a face centered cubic ( fcc ) structure with the ( 200 ) and ( 400 ) indices , or a cscl structure with ( 110 ) and ( 220 ) indices . also measured were the 24 hr long laue diffraction ( ld ) patterns on this sample in transmission as well as grazing incidence reflection mode . in both modes laue spots were observed , indicating that this sample has an epitaxial nature and not a powder / polycrystalline nature . this is also confirmed with the second order peak in the bottom plot which has resolved in the kα 1 and kα 2 components ( inset ). this peak is obtained via a 15 summation scan to enhance the signal . the fwhm values are 494 and 371 arc - secs for the first and second order peaks , respectively . the first order peak is a convolution of the two kα components . in order to confirm the structure , the third order peak was examined , which was not measurable since it occurs at much higher angles and the sample is only 60 nm thick . also , the d - spacings of the first two peaks do not match to any inn phases in the icdd database . the results suggest that the inn on a sapphire at 183 ° c . has a highly oriented epitaxial structure . further analysis of the data reveals that the d spacings ( 6 . 68 å ) of the first peak do not match to any of the known inn phases in the reported international center for diffraction data ( icdd ) database and instead corresponds to a face centered cubic ( fcc ) structure which has not been reported before . the xrd data was corroborated by electron microscopy as described in cryst . growth des . 2013 , 13 , 1485 - 1490 , incorporated herein by reference . fig3 shows a schematic of the alignment of a face centered cubic ( fcc ) inn phase unit cell with an a - plane sapphire substrate unit cell . from the measured lattice parameter of the inn film assuming the fcc structure , we see that it has only a 2 . 8 % mismatch with the in - plane c - direction and a 18 . 9 % mismatch with the in - plane m - direction of sapphire . this is further indication that this is the most likely phase of the grown inn film on a - plane sapphire . there has been a previous report ( see ref . 21 ) of cubic inn growth at 450 ° c . by plasma - assisted molecular beam epitaxy ( mbe ) on inas / gaas , but the inn is demonstrated to have a zns ( zincblende ) phase rather than a nacl - type phase as obtained herein . table 1 summarizes different parameters and their values to synthesize various materials . each ale cycle consisted of first a 60 ms trimethylindium ( tmi ) pulse ( which was empirically found as self - limited ale growth mode , with longer pulses not providing significantly greater growth ), which were added to a constant 30 and 100 sccm flow of uhp argon carrier gas . after each tmi pulse , the main pumping valve was closed for 5 sec so that the surface would saturate with in atoms . a 20 second long 300 watt n 2 plasma exposure was used to provide nitrogen precursor to the indium saturated surface . to remove unreacted precursors , the deposition chamber was purged with uhp argon for 10 s after each pulse . the reactor chuck was heated resistively , and the temperature was calibrated using thermocouple and by pyrometer by cnt . the values of parameters given are examples . other values are possible . table ii summarizes different parameters and their values to synthesize various materials that contain aluminum . each ale cycle consisted of first a 60 ms trimethylaluminum ( tma ) pulse ( which was empirically found as self - limited ale growth mode , with longer pulses not providing significantly greater growth ), which were added to a constant 30 and 100 sccm flow of uhp argon carrier gas . after each tma pulse , a 20 second long 300 watt n2 / h2 plasma exposure was used to provide nitrogen precursor to the aluminum saturated surface . to remove unreacted precursors , the deposition chamber was purged with uhp argon for 10 s after each pulse . the reactor chuck was heated resistively , and the temperature was calibrated using thermocouple and by pyrometer by cnt . the values of parameters given are examples . other values are possible . for the ale growth of alinn , inn and aln layers were grown layer by layer in the fashion of a digital alloy . to grow al 0 . 90 in 0 . 10 n , aln and inn were grown alternatively . for an aln cycle for every two cycles of inn results in al 0 . 79 in 0 . 21 n . for an aln cycle for every three cycles of inn results al 0 . 68 in 0 . 32 n . thus by changing the combination of number layers of inn and aln , al x in 1 − x n films can be obtained in for the full range of x ( 0 to 1 ) via atomic layer epitaxy . in this manner , alinn ternary alloys are realized over the entire desired stoichiometry range — this is believed to be the first time this was accomplished . the values of parameters given are examples . other values are possible . table iii summarizes different parameters and their values to synthesize various materials that contain gallium . each ale cycle consisted of first a 15 ms trimethylgallium ( tmg ) pulse ( which was empirically found as self - limited ale growth mode , with longer pulses not providing significantly greater growth ), which were added to a constant 30 and 100 sccm flow of uhp argon carrier gas . after each tmg pulse , a 20 second long 300 watt n 2 plasma exposure was used to provide nitrogen precursor to the gallium saturated surface . to remove unreacted precursors , the deposition chamber was purged with uhp argon for 10 s after each pulse . the reactor chuck was heated resistively , and the temperature was calibrated using thermocouple and by pyrometer by cnt . the values of parameters given are examples . other values are possible for the ale growth of ingan , inn and gan layers were grown layer by layer in the fashion of a digital alloy . to grow in 0 . 60 ga 0 . 40 n , gan and inn were grown alternatively . conducting two gan cycles for every inn cycle results in in 0 . 45 ga 0 . 55 n . conducting three gan cycles for every inn cycle results in in 0 . 37 ga 0 . 63 n . thus , by changing the combination of number layers of inn and gan , in x ga 1 − x n films can be obtained in for the full range of x ( 0 to 1 , inclusive ) via atomic layer epitaxy . in this manner , ingan ternary alloys are realized over the entire desired stoichiometric range — this is believed to be the first time this was accomplished . the values of parameters given are examples . other values are possible . for the ale growth of algan , aln and gan layers were grown layer by layer in the fashion of a digital alloy . to grow a 0 . 85 ga 0 . 15 n , aln and gan were grown alternatively . for two gan cycles for every aln cycle results in al 0 . 75 ga 0 . 25 n . for three gan cycles for every aln cycle results in al 0 . 60 ga 0 . 40 n . thus by changing the combination of number layers of aln and gan , al x ga 1 − x n films can be obtained in for the full range of x ( 0 to 1 , inclusive ) via atomic layer epitaxy . in this manner , algan ternary alloys are realized over the entire desired stoichiometric range — this is believed to be the first time this was accomplished at temperatures below 700 ° c . the values of parameters given are examples . other values are possible . inn was grown at temperatures as low as room temperature ( about 25 ° c .) and as high as 300 ° c ., for example at 183 ° c . gan was grown at temperatures as low as room temperature ( about 25 ° c .) and as high as 500 ° c ., for example at 400 ° c . aln was grown at temperatures as low as room temperature ( about 25 ° c .) and as high as 650 ° c ., for example at 500 ° c . the ternary materials that mix these binaries can be grown at temperatures suitable for a combination of those binaries . algan ternaries were grown at low as room temperature ( about 25 ° c .) and as high as 500 ° c ., for example at 400 ° c . alinn ternaries were grown at low as room temperature ( about 25 ° c .) and as high as 500 ° c ., for example at 260 ° c . ingan ternaries were grown at low as room temperature ( about 25 ° c .) and as high as 400 ° c ., for example at 260 ° c . substrates of silicon , gallium nitride , and sapphire have been employed for the above methods . it is believed that any standard substrate used in the art would be suitable . quaternary alloys of the form al x in y ga 1 −( x + y ) n are also believed to be obtainable using the above techniques . it is expected that the full range of x and y would be achievable . the techniques described herein are expected to provide a crystalline material having low oxygen impurity by ex situ and in situ surface treatment . moreover , in situ surface treatment with the atomic hydrogen , nitrogen , mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen , and / or ammonia plasma is possible . it is possible to vary purge time with the pumping speed in order to control carbon impurities . all documents mentioned herein are hereby incorporated by reference for the purpose of disclosing and describing the particular materials and methodologies for which the document was cited . although the present invention has been described in connection with preferred embodiments thereof , it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that additions , deletions , modifications , and substitutions not specifically described may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention . terminology used herein should not be construed as being “ means - 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