Direct growth of highly oriented GaN thin films on silicon by remote plasma CVD

We report on low-temperature (500 °C) and low-pressure (0.3 mbar) direct growth of GaN thin films on silicon (100) substrates using remote plasma chemical vapour deposition (RP-CVD). In the custom-designed reactor, an RF inductively coupled plasma is generated remotely from the substrate’s area to facilitate the decomposition of group-V precursor, N₂ with added H₂, while group-III precursor trimethylgallium (TMGa), is directly injected into the growth chamber mixed with H₂ carrier gas. Growth parameters such as RF power, process pressure and gas flow rates have been optimized to achieve a film growth rate of about 0.6 µm h⁻¹. Several characterization techniques were used to investigate the plasma and the properties of the grown thin films in terms of their crystallinity, morphology, topography, and composition. The films are highly textured with a preferential orientation along the c-axis of the wurtzite structure. They present a small roughness in the nanometer range and a columnar microstructure with a grain size of one hundred nanometer, and a gallium polarity (+c plane oriented). Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and nuclear reaction analysis show that the chemical composition is homogeneous through the depth of the layer, with a III/V ratio close to 1, a very low content of oxygen (below the detection limit ∼1%) and a carbon content up to 11%. It was shown that the increase of plasma power helps to reduce this carbon contamination down to 8%. This research paves the way for a growth method compatible with cost reduction of III-V thin film production achieved through reduced gas consumption facilitated by RP-CVD operation at low pressure.