Aditya Pradipta

201702643

Summary on the article : Influence of TMAl preflow on AlN epitaxy on sapphire.

In the Applied Physics Letters 2017 May 12; 110(19): 192106, Haiding Sun, Feng Wu, Young Jae
Park, T. M. Al tahtamouni, Kuang-Hui Li, Nasir Alfaraj, Theeradetch Detchprohm, Russell D.
Dupuis, and Xiaohang Li published their article titled "Influence of TMAl preflow on AlN
epitaxy on sapphire". In this research they present results on carbon’s significance in the
polarity and growth mode of AlN films caused by TMAl preflow. The reason behind this
research being conducted was, the uncertainty of how the TMAl preflow process can lead to
the Al-polarity and how different doses of the TMAl preflow can result in different growth
modes of AlN films, and also because there has been no direct experimental evidence
published supporting this model up to the point of the research. They prepared three
samples with different preflow with 0s, 5s and 40s, to observe the impact of TMAI preflows
on the generation of graphitic carbon on the AIN/sapphire interface. Carbon rich clusters
were created due to the decomposition of TMAl, and was observed via scanning electron
microscopy (SEM) images and high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron
microscopy (HAADF-STEM) also with Raman measurements and atomic force microscopy
(AFM). All test results confirms that rich carbon cluster was indeed created during the TMAI
preflows.

It was also found that carbon played a primary role in determining the polarity and growth
mode of the AlN film. Carbon captured oxygen on the sapphire surface, preventing the
formation of AlxOyNz and thus N-polar AlN. Meanwhile with the absence of TMAl preflow,
the AlN film had a mixed polarity. They also found that to create Al-polar AlN films, it is
practically beneficial to assert a precise control and to introduce slightly the presence of
carbon, as excessive preflow resulted in the complete 3D growth of an Al-polar film, creating
shift of the growth mode from quasi-3D to 3D, leading to a nanocolumn growth mode. Finally
they have proven that TMAl preflow process could be a practical way for controlling the
crystallographic polarity and the growth mode of AlN films by precisely controlling the
preflow process in order to induce formation of graphitic carbon on the sapphire’s surface.