Anisotropic Mg incorporation in GaN growth on nonplanar templates

Anisotropic Mg incorporation has been observed in the growth of p-type GaN on nonplanar GaN templates. As shown by cross-sectional scanning electron microscopy and cathodoluminescence spectroscopy, Mg-doped GaN grown on (0001) mesa tops is observed to have higher Mg concentration than the counterpart layers grown on {11 (2) over bar2} sidewalls. The origin of this anisotropic Mg incorporation is believed to be associated with local surface structure on the different surface facets. More importantly, this unique structure of Mg-doped GaN provides a natural lateral current confinement that paves a promising path to fabrication of InGaN/GaN buried heterostructure lasers on these nonplanar templates. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.