Dislocation reduction via selective-area growth of InN accompanied by lateral growth by rf-plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy

We investigated the selective-area growth (SAG) of InN by rf-plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy using molybdenum (Mo)-mask-patterned sapphire (0001) substrates, which resulted in the formation of regularly arranged N-polar InN microcrystals. Transmission electron microscopy observation confirmed that the laterally grown side areas were nearly dislocation-free, although many threading dislocations (109-1010 cm-2) were generated at the InN/sapphire interface and propagated into the center of the InN microcrystals along the crystal c-axis. The laterally grown InN microcrystals exhibited narrow near-IR emission spectra with a peak photon energy of 0.627 eV and a linewidth of 39 meV at room temperature.