the epitaxial growth of gallium nitride on a GaN substrate was investigated by a molecular dynamics method. Furthermore, the difference between the surface diffusion of atoms of a strained substrate and an unstrained substrate was examined. From the results of this examination, it was found that the diffusion characteristic in the unstrained case was higher than that in the strained case. Therefore, in the unstrained case, GaN grew layer-by-layer. On the other hand, in the strained case, multiple layers of GaN grew simultaneously. Furthermore, it was also found that the wurtzite structure of GaN differs between the strained case and the unstrained case.

Strain Dependence of Formation Mechanism of Growth Layer in Molecular Beam Epitaxy of Gallium Nitride. Y.Kobayashi, Y.Doi, A.Nakatani: Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 2010, 49[11], 115601