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Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and diamond are promising materials for next-generation electronics and optoelectronics. However, their combination is rarely reported. In this study, we for the first time demonstrate the success to direct growth of two-dimensional (2D) hBN crystal layers on diamond substrates by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. Compared with the disordered growth we found on diamond (100), atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy results all support 2D hBN with highly oriented lattice formation on diamond (111). Also, the epitaxial relationship between hBN and diamond (111) substrate is revealed to be [0 0 0 1] hBN // [1 1 1] diamond and [1 0 1̅ 0] hBN // [1 1 2̅ ] diamond . The valence band offset at hBN/diamond (111) heterointerface determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is 1.4 ± 0.2 eV, thus yielding a conduction band offset of 1.0 ± 0.2 eV and type II staggered band alignment with a bandgap of 5.9 eV assumed for hBN. Furthermore, prior thermal cleaning of diamond in a pure H 2 atmosphere smoothens the surface for well-ordered layered hBN epitaxy, while thermal cleaning in a mixed H 2 and NH 3 atmosphere etches the diamond surface, creating many small faceted pits that destroy the following epitaxy of hBN.

Nitride has been drawing much attention due to its wide range of applications in optoelectronics and remains plenty of room for materials design and discovery. Here, a large set of nitrides have been designed, with their band gap and alignment being studied by first-principles calculations combined with machine learning. Band gap and band offset against wurtzite GaN accurately calculated by the combination of screened hybrid functional of HSE and DFT-PBE were used to train and test machine learning models. After comparison among different techniques of machine learning, when elemental properties are taken as features, support vector regression (SVR) with radial kernel performs best for predicting both band gap and band offset with prediction root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.298 eV and 0.183 eV, respectively. The former is within HSE calculation uncertainty and the latter is small enough to provide reliable predictions. Additionally, 2 when band gap calculated by DFT-PBE was added into the feature space, band gap prediction RMSE decreases to 0.099 eV. Through a feature engineering algorithm, elemental feature space based band gap prediction RMSE further drops by around 0.005 eV and the relative importance of elemental properties for band gap prediction was revealed. Finally, band gap and band offset of all designed nitrides were predicted and two trends were noticed that as the number of cation types increases, band gap tends to narrow down while band offset tends to go up. The predicted results will be a useful guidance for precise investigation on nitride engineering.

A monolithic multicomponent system is proposed and implemented on a III-nitride-on-silicon platform, whereby two multiple-quantum-well diodes (MQW-diodes) are interconnected by a suspended waveguide. Both MQW-diodes have an identical low-In-content InGaN/Al0.10Ga0.90N MQW structure and are produced by the same fabrication process flow. When appropriately biased, both MQW-diodes operate under a simultaneous emission-detection mode and function as a transmitter and a receiver at the same time, forming an in-plane full-duplex light communication system. Real-time full-duplex audio communication is experimentally demonstrated using the monolithic multicomponent system in combination with an external circuit.

Thick AlN crystals were grown by conventional hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) on AlN/sapphire templates under low pressure (∼15 Torr) at high temperature (1100°C–1200°C). Colorless, mirror-like AlN films were obtained at the growth rates of up to 20.6 µm/h. The best root mean square (RMS) value of atomic force microscope (AFM) observations for the AlN surface was 2.34 nm. The typical values of full width half maximum (FWHM) of X-ray rocking curves for (0002) and (1012) diffraction of AlN films were 173–314 arcsec and 1574–1905 arcsec, respectively. We also investigated the influences of carrier gas, growth temperature and growth rate on the crystal quality.

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We studied the nucleation and growth of hexagonal BN (h-BN) on AlN template on c-plane sapphire by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy as functions of growth temperature, deposition time, and triethylboron (TEB) partial pressure. A lateral growth rate of about 25 nm min−1 for h-BN nuclei was obtained by atomic force microscopy and a nucleation activation energy of 2.1 eV was extracted from the temperature dependence of the nucleation density. A large TEB flow rate strongly enhances the formation of h-BN nuclei. At a reduced TEB flow rate, we observed a significantly decreased nuclei density and a delay in nucleation due to TEB desorption. By fine tuning the growth parameters, single-crystalline multilayer h-BN was successfully formed on AlN surface, as confirmed by x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The epitaxial relationship between h-BN and AlN was [0 0 0 1]h-BN || [0 0 0 1]AlN and [1 0   −1 0]h-BN || [1 1   −2 0]AlN from TEM and electron backscatter diffraction measurements. In addition, TEM showed that the initial h-BN layers are not parallel and tend to form half-domes. On those half-domes (cap-shaped-like) a 2D lateral growth sets on, resulting in a well-oriented 2D multilayer observed in TEM. Thus, the surface topography further develops to form a relatively flat surface without wrinkles and finally a typical hexagon-like wrinkled surface at thicker h-BN layers. Particularly, the small h-BN nuclei have dangling bonds at their periphery that can interact with the substrate, forming actual bonds with AlN. Hence the choice on the substrate is important, despite the basal planes of multilayer h-BN are bonded by a weak van der Waals force.

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