Gallium Nitride Wafer Preparation for Epitaxial Growth

"Kyma Technologies has made homoepitaxial growth of GaN a reality using its 2" diameter GaN substrates. This program will develop the substrate preparation process for epitaxial growth of gallium nitride films. This will include mechanical andchemical-mechanical polishing as well as wet and dry etching. The main emphasis of the phase I effort will be on GaN surface polishing and removal of the damaged layer prior to epitaxial growth. Wafer preparation is one of the most important factors ingrowth of high quality GaN epitaxial thin films. Damage induced by polishing can have severe effects on the quality of epitaxial film growth. The crystal quality of MOCVD GaN thin films will be used as the response for the preparation techniques. Thisproject will utilize parallel efforts of materials development, epi fabrication and materials characterization. The initial focus in this program will be the improvement of the GaN epitaxial growth surface. The phase II will focus on optimization of thenitride layers in order to produce high quality optoelectronic and microelectronic devices, where the greatest interest for commercial and military based applications exists. The accomplishment of low-dislocation-density GaN material will increaselifetime and brightness in optoelectronic devices. Single crystal gallium nitride will be the future building block for many commercial devices. Low defect density gallium nitride films will benefit ma