Non-polar (11•0) and semipolar (11•2) GaN were grown on r-plane and m-plane sapphire by MOCVD to investigate the characteristics of basal-plane stacking faults. Transmission electron microscopy reveals that the density of basal-plane stacking faults for the semipolar (11•2) and nonpolar a-plane GaN template was 3 x 105 and 8 x 105/cm, respectively. The semipolar (11•2) GaN shows an arrowhead-like structure, and the non-polar a-plane GaN has a much smoother morphology with a streak along the c-axis. Both non-polar (11•0) and semipolar (11•2) GaN have very strong basal-plane stacking faults luminescence due to the optically active character of the basal-plane stacking faults.

Comparative Study of the Characteristics of the Basal Plane Stacking Faults of Nonpolar a-Plane and Semipolar (11¯22) GaN. S.R.Xu, Z.Y.Lin, X.Y.Xue, Z.Y.Liu, J.C.Ma, T.Jiang, W.Mao, D.H.Wang, J.C.Zhang, Y.Hao: Chinese Physics Letters, 2012, 29[1], 017803