Dislocations at the interface between sapphire and GaN

GaN layers grown by metal organic vapour phase epitaxy on sapphire were imaged by synchrotron radiation X-ray topography. The threading dislocations could not be resolved in the topographs due to their high density, but a smaller density of about 10 5 cm −2 defects were seen in the interface between GaN and sapphire by utilizing large-area back-reflection topography for the sapphire substrates. The misfit dislocation images in the topographs form a well-resolved cellular network, in which the average cell size is roughly 30 μm. Different cell shapes in the misfit dislocation networks are observed on different samples. Also, images of small-angle grains of similar size were found in transmission section topographs of the GaN layers.