Misfit dislocation formation in the AlGaN/GaN heterointerface

Heteroepitaxial growth of AlxGa1-xN alloy films on GaN results in large tensile strain due to the lattice mismatch. During growth, this strain is partially relieved both by crack formation and by the coupled introduction of dense misfit dislocation arrays. Extensive transmission electron microscopy measurements show that the misfit dislocations enter the film by pyramidal glide of half loops on the 1/3<(11) under bar 23>/{11 (2) under bar2} slip system, which is a well-known secondary slip system in hcp metals. Unlike the hcp case, however, where shuffle-type dislocations must be invoked for this slip plane, we show that glide-type dislocations are also possible. Comparisons of measured and theoretical critical thicknesses show that fully strained films can be grown into the metastable regime, which we attribute to limitations on defect nucleation. At advanced stages of relaxation, interfacial multiplication of dislocations dominates the strain relaxation process. This work demonstrates that misfit dislocations are important mechanisms for relaxation of strained III-nitride heterostructures that can contribute significantly to the overall defect density. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.