A study was made of the elimination of stacking faults by 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 led to the conclusion that the elimination mechanism was most likely valid for all layers with (1¯1•1) surfaces, enabling hetero-epitaxial 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