A study was made of the elimination of stacking faults via the insertion of low-temperature AlN interlayers in nearly (10•6) and (1¯1•4) oriented semi-polar GaN grown by metalorganic vapour-phase epitaxy on Si(112) and Si(113), respectively. The elimination of these defects was visualized by cathodoluminescence as well as scanning transmission electron microscopy and scanning transmission electron microscopy-cathodoluminescence. A possible annihilation mechanism was discussed which leads to the conclusion that the elimination mechanism was most likely valid for all layers with (1¯1•1) surfaces, enabling heteroepitaxial semi- and non-polar GaN free from stacking faults.

Eliminating Stacking Faults in Semi-Polar GaN by AlN Interlayers. A.Dadgar, R.Ravash, P.Veit, G.Schmidt, M.Müller, A.Dempewolf, F.Bertram, M.Wieneke, J.Christen, A.Krost: Applied Physics Letters, 2011,  99[2], 021905