Improvement of crystalline quality in GaN films by air-bridged lateral epitaxial growth

Air-bridged lateral epitaxial growth (ABLEG), a new technique of lateral growth of GaN films, has been developed using low-pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. A previously grown 1-mum-thick GaN film is grooved along the (1 (1) over bar 00)(GaN) direction, and the bottoms of the trenches and the sidewalls are covered with a silicon nitride mask. A free-standing GaN material is regrown from the exposed (0001) surface of the ridged GaN seed structure. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy analysis reveals that the dislocations originating from the underlying seed GaN extend straight in the (0001) direction and dislocations do not propagate into the wing region. The wing region also exhibits a smooth surface and the root mean square roughness is found to be 0.088 nm by atomic force microscopy measurement of the (0001) face of the wing region.