Transmission electron microscopy of defects and internal fields in GaN structures

The main aim of this study was to understand the microstructure of GaN and InGaN/GaN and to examine electric fields around the defects, and across the quantum wells by electron holography. For this reason different types of GaN and InGaN/GaN samples have been prepared and studied. Conventional transmission electron microscopy has been used for structural study of two MBE grown GaN/GaAs samples, grown at room temperature and at 340 deg C. The structure of the samples were found to be hexagonal polycrystalline in an amorphous GaN matrix, and textured hexagonal polycrystalline material respectively. The experimental results indicate that the higher growth temperature results in a more crystalline material with a higher density of bigger grain sizes. Different types of undoped and Si doped GaN/Sapphire samples were studied, with respect to the defect structure in GaN films. GaN was found to be a highly defective material with a dislocation density of 109/cm2. The majority of the dislocations are edge dislocations. It has been found that nanopipes are open core screw dislocations, and the population and size of the nanopipes is proportional to the Si doping concentration. Dislocation structures were found to depend on the Si doping level in the material, with higher Si doping giving a lower density of dislocations with a more random distribution. In addition some EELS, EDX and HRTEM have been performed on the nanopipes and dislocations in order to investigate Si segregation in the defects. In MBE grown GaN/In0.1Ga0.9N/GaN SQWs and MQWs, V shaped defects were found to be present in the InGaN regions, which locally reduced the width of the InGaN layers. (author)