Incorporation of pervasive impurities on HVPE GaN growth directions

High crystallinity thick films with low free carrier concentration (≤1×1015/cm3) and low compensation are required for many GaN-based electronic device applications. It has been demonstrated that low pressure chemical vapor and molecular beam epitaxy techniques can reproducibility deposit homoepitaxial films with low residual impurity concentrations. However, their typical slow growth rates prevent their utilization for thick film growth. Presently, hydride vapor phase epitaxy is the sole method that can deposit films with residual impurity concentrations ≤5×1016/cm3 at hundreds of microns per hour growth rate. It is crucial to verify if this method can reproducibly deliver thick free-standing GaN films of high crystalline quality with exceptionally low and uniform free carrier concentration. X-ray diffraction, Raman scattering, and low temperature photoluminescence experiments were carried out on a number of samples prepared by dicing a free-standing wafer into several pieces perpendicular and parallel to the major growth directions; namely, c-plane {0001}, a-plane {11−20}, and m-plane {1−100}. SIMS depth profiles were employed to identify and quantify the concentration of the pervasive impurities. Spatial maps of a Raman line sensitive to free-carrier concentration were measured to determine the spatial distribution of the net impurity concentration. The reduced concentration of un-compensated shallow donors was also verified by low temperature electron paramagnetic resonance. •Silicon and oxygen are the pervasive impurities associated with n-type conductivity.•The concentration of free carrier is uniform across the sample surface.•The incorporation of oxygen is larger at the N-polar face of the crystal.•The concentration of oxygen reduces with increasing crystal thickness.•The concentration of Si remains constant across the sample.