Advanced semiconductor heterostructures are at the very heart of many modern technologies, including aggressively scaled complementary metal oxide semiconductor transistors for high performance computing and laser diodes for low power solid state lighting applications. The control of structural and compositional homogeneity of these semiconductor heterostructures is the key to success to further develop these state-of-the-art technologies. In this article, we report on the lateral distribution of tilt, composition, and strain across step-graded SiGe strain relaxed buffer layers on 300 mm Si(001) wafers treated with and without chemical−mechanical polishing. By using the advanced synchrotron based scanning X-ray diffraction microscopy technique K-Map together with micro-Raman spectroscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy, we are able to establish a partial correlation between real space morphology and structural properties of the sample resolved at the micrometer scale. In particular, we demonstrate that the lattice plane bending of the commonly observed cross-hatch pattern is caused by dislocations. Our results show a strong local correlation between the strain field and composition distribution, indicating that the adatom surface diffusion during growth is driven by strain field fluctuations induced by the underlying dislocation network. Finally, it is revealed that a superficial chemical−mechanical polishing of crosshatched surfaces does not lead to any significant change of tilt, composition, and strain variation compared to that of as-grown samples.

We demonstrate that significant dislocation movement occurs below the surface of heteroepitaxial c-plane GaN films during their growth by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. Dislocations move primarily by vacancy-assisted climb, which appears to be driven by the high in-plane biaxial stresses present during growth. Annealing low dislocation density (4.3×108 cm−2) GaN films promotes dislocation climb and thus reduces both dislocation densities and in-plane stresses (at high temperatures), independent of epilayer growth conditions.

Low temperature cathodo- and photoluminescence has been performed on nonpolar a-plane GaN films grown using epitaxial lateral overgrowth. In films overgrown at a low V–III ratio, the emission spectrum is dominated by “yellow” and “blue” luminescence bands, attributed to recombination at point defects or impurities. The intensity of this emission is observed to decrease steadily across the window region along the −c direction, possibly due to asymmetric diffusion of a point defect/impurity species. When overgrown at a higher V–III ratio, the near band edge and basal-plane stacking fault emission intensity increases by orders of magnitude and a donor–acceptor pair band is observed. Using monochromatic cathodoluminescence imaging, the various emission features are correlated with the microstructure of the film. In particular, the peak energy of the basal-plane stacking fault emission is seen to be blueshifted by ∼15 meV in the wing relative to the window region, which may be related to the different strain states in the respective regions.

Unintentional doping in nonpolar a-plane (112¯0) gallium nitride (GaN) grown on r-plane (11¯02) sapphire using a three-dimensional (3D)–two-dimensional (2D) growth method has been characterized. For both 2D only and 3D–2D growth, the presence of an unintentionally doped region adjacent to the GaN/sapphire interface is observed by scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM). The average width of this unintentionally doped layer is found to increase with increasing 3D growth time. By using an intentionally doped GaN:Si staircase structure for calibration, it is shown that the unintentionally doped region has an average carrier concentration of (2.5±0.3)×1018 cm−3. SCM also reveals the presence of unintentionally doped features extending at 60° from the GaN/sapphire interface. The observation of decreasing carrier concentration with distance from the GaN/sapphire interface along these features may suggest that the unintentional doping arises from oxygen diffusion from the sapphire substrate. Low temperature cathodoluminescence spectra reveal emission peaks at 3.41 and 3.30 eV, which are believed to originate from basal plane stacking faults (BSFs) and prismatic stacking faults (PSFs), respectively. It is shown that the inclined features extending from the GaN/sapphire interface exhibit both enhanced BSF and PSF emission. We suggest that enhanced unintentional doping occurs in regions around PSFs. Where BSFs intersect this doped material their emission is also enhanced due to reduced nonradiative recombination. Transmission electron microscopy confirms the presence of PSFs extending through the film at 60° from the GaN/sapphire interface.