Papers by Author: Xian Gang Xu

Abstract: In this work, we studied the effect of surface preparation and substrate temperature during sputter deposition of Schottky contacts on N-GaN/SiC/Si substrates, looking at parameters such as on-resistance, reverse leakage, and contact barrier height. Ti, Ni and Mo were sputtered to form the contacts, and we characterized the I-V curves with the different substrate temperatures during the sputtering as shown in Figure 1. For the Ti Schottky contact, the substrate temperature of 100oC during the sputtering demonstrates the minimum series resistance with Rs about 0.04cm2, while temperatures greater than 3000C increased reverse bias leakage. The Mott-Schottky plot reveals a barrier height of 1.2V for this contact. Results for sputtered Ni contacts using different substrate temperatures will also be presented, as well as the effect of Ar sputter cleaning before contact deposition.

Abstract: Graphene, as strict two-dimensional material, exhibits exceptionally good electronic properties. In this paper, graphene was prepared on SiC substrates at different temperature based on two types of pre-treated surface. The surface morphology was characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). The results on SiC surface pre-treatment showed that chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) was an effective surface treatment method for reproducible and controlled growth of graphene. Images of the Si-surface revealed that the thickness of graphitic layers increased with annealing temperature. Meanwhile, a mesh-like network of wrinkles tended to tent-like features with the increase of temperature. The residual stresses, average crystallite size and number of graphene layers were analyzed by Raman spectroscopy. Little shift of 2D-band indicated the presence of certain stresses. Results among four samples showed that graphene layers grown on MP C-surface substrates had the thickest layers，contained the smallest average crystallite size L_a and exhibited no stresses. While graphene layers grown on Si-surface under 1600°C built upon compressive stresses, exhibited largest L_a and least number of graphene layers, indicating perfect quality.

Abstract: Gallium nitrides are primarily used for their excellent light emission properties. GaN LEDs are mostly grown on foreign substrates, essentially sapphire and SiC, but more recently, also on Si substrates. In this paper, we will demonstrate that the high structural quality of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells can be deposited on 3C-SiC/Si (111) substrate using MOCVD. This demonstrates that 3C-SiC/Si is a promising template for the epitaxial growth of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells for LEDs.

Abstract: Results on bulk growth of SiC crystals along rhombohedral [01-1n] directions are presented. 6H- and 4H-crystals were grown on rhombohedral planes, which make angles of about 45o with the (0001) plane. Etching features on three differently oriented planes cut from characteristic crystals were compared. Utmost care was concentrated on defect development in the case of non-conventional growth orientation using the seed cut from a “standard” (0001) crystal, containing a typical (standard for [0001] growth) set of crystal defects. We clearly distinguished between a transient layer adjacent to the seed and the main crystal body grown at latter stages. The defect selection and/or transformation in the transient layer appeared strongly depending on the SiC polytype and growth direction. This study brings directly the information on stability of particular defects in the chosen crystal orientation and allows us to distinguish between defects characteristic for [0001] and rhombohedral growth.