High-phase-purity zinc-blende InN on r-plane sapphire substrate with controlled nitridation pretreatment
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Date
2008-03-17
Authors
C.-L. Hsiao
T.-W. Liu
C.-T. Wu
H.-C. Hsu
G.-M. Hsu
L.-C. Chen
W.-Y. Shiao
C.-C. Yang
A. Gaellstroem
P.-O. Holtz
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Abstract
High-phase-purity zinc-blende (zb) InN thin film has been grown by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy on r-plane sapphire substrate pretreated with nitridation. X-ray diffraction analysis shows that the phase of the InN films changes from wurtzite (w) InN to a mixture of w-InN and zb-InN, to zb-InN with increasing nitridation time. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy reveals an ultrathin crystallized interlayer produced by substrate nitridation, which plays an important role in controlling the InN phase. Photoluminescence emission of zb-InN measured at 20 K shows a peak at a very low energy, 0.636 eV, and an absorption edge at ∼0.62 eV is observed at 2 K, which is the lowest bandgap reported to date among the III-nitride semiconductors.