NITRIDE SEMICONDUCTOR SUBSTRATE

A nitride semiconductor substrate can effectively reduce leakage current in the vertical direction. The nitride semiconductor substrate comprises a buffer layer and an operation layer, both of which are made of nitride semiconductor, deposited on a silicon single crystal substrate, wherein the buffer layer comprises a single-layered first initial layer in contact with the silicon single crystal layer, and a single-layered second initial layer in contact with the first initial layer, the first initial layer is made of AlN, the second initial layer is made of AlzGa1-zN (0.12≤z≤0.65), and in an X-Y graph where the X-axis denotes z×100 and the Y-axis denotes carbon concentration in the second initial layer, X ranges from 12 to 65 and Y is within a range between Y=1E+17×exp(−0.05×X) and Y=1E+21×exp(−0.05×X).