Effect of H₂ addition on growth rate and surface morphology of GaN(0001) grown by halide-vapor-phase epitaxy using GaCl₃

Abstract

We investigated the effect of H2 addition in halide-vapor-phase epitaxy (HVPE) of GaN on Ga-polar GaN(0001) using an external GaCl3 supply method. To overcome the problem of the very low growth rate on GaN(0001) using GaCl3, we intentionally added H2 to convert GaCl3 to GaCl in the reactor. Using this approach, we successfully increased the growth rate, and also improved the surface morphology of the grown layer.