Temperature dependent lattice expansions of epitaxial GaN-on-Si heterostructures characterized by in- and ex-situ X-ray diffraction

Highlights: • In- and ex-situ XRD have been employed to study GaN-on-Si heterostructures. • SG-AlGaN and MLT-AlN buffers in tandem with substrate thickness of Si are compared. • Onset of drops in lattice expansions have been observed at elevated temperatures. • Strain relaxations of the buffer layers occurred without crystal deteriorations. • Lattice expansion behaviors were addressed by strain relaxation and wafer curvature. -- Abstract: In-situ X-ray diffraction (XRD), with the sample temperature stepwise increased up to 900 °C, together with ex-situ high-resolution XRD (HRXRD), has been used to study the lattice expansion along the surface normal direction of GaN-on-Si heterostructures grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The thermal stabilities induced by step-graded (SG) Al_xGa_1−xN/AlN and multiple low-temperature (MLT) AlN buffer layers have been addressed for the heterostructures grown on 700 and 1500 µm thick Si (111) wafers, respectively. It reveals that the thermal expansion of the GaN epilayer is slightly larger than that of the Si substrate and the nitride growth tends to decrease the thermal expansion of the Si (111) wafer at lower temperatures. Onset of drop in the lattice expansions has been observed when the temperature is increased to a transition point, T_tr, and the T_tr of the MLT-AlN buffered GaN on the 1500 µm thick Si is ~500 °C, which is apparently lower than that of the SG-Al_xGa_1−xN/AlN buffered GaN on the 700 µm thick Si. These observations have been interpreted and attributed to convolutions among the residual lattice strains, their relaxations, and the thermal expansion coefficient mismatch induced wafer curvatures (opposite to that during MOCVD growth) at elevated temperatures.