Non-polar (11•0) and semi-polar (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 revealed that the density of basal plane stacking faults for the semi-polar (11•2) and non=polar a-plane GaN template was 3 x 105/cm and 8 x 105/cm, respectively. The semi-polar (11•2) GaN showed an arrowhead-like structure, and the non-polar a-plane GaN had a much smoother morphology with a streak along the c-axis. Both non-polar (11•0) and semi-polar (11•2) GaN had very strong basal plane stacking fault 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, J.Teng, M.Wei, D.H.Wang, J.C.Zhang, H.Yue: Chinese Physics Letters, 2012, 29[1], 017803