AACVD of Cu[sub.3]N on Al[sub.2]O[sub.3] Using CuCl[sub.2] and NH[sub.3]

Cu[sub.3]N has been grown on m-Al[sub.2]O[sub.3] by aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition using 0.1 M CuCl[sub.2] in CH[sub.3]CH[sub.2]OH under an excess of NH[sub.3] at 600 °C, which led to the deposition of Cu that was subsequently converted into Cu[sub.3]N under NH[sub.3]: O[sub.2] at 400 °C in a two-step process without exposure to the ambient. The reaction of CuCl[sub.2] with an excess of NH[sub.3] did not lead to the growth of Cu[sub.3]N, which is different to the case of halide vapor phase epitaxy of III-V semiconductors. The Cu[sub.3]N layers obtained in this way had an anti-ReO[sub.3] cubic crystal structure with a lattice constant of 3.8 Å and were found to be persistently n-type, with a room temperature carrier density of n = 2 × 10[sup.16] cm[sup.−3] and mobility of µ[sub.n] = 32 cm[sup.2]/Vs. The surface depletion, calculated in the effective mass approximation, was found to extend over ~0.15 µm by considering a surface barrier height of ϕ[sub.B] = 0.4 eV related to the formation of native Cu[sub.2]O.