Epitaxial growth of group III-nitride films by pulsed laser deposition and their use in the development of LED devices

Recently, pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technology makes viable the epitaxial growth of group III-nitrides on thermally active substrates at low temperature. The precursors generated from the pulsed laser ablating the target has enough kinetic energy when arriving at substrates, thereby effectively suppressing the interfacial reactions between the epitaxial films and the substrates, and eventually makes the film growth at low temperature possible. So far, high-quality group III-nitride epitaxial films have been successfully grown on a variety of thermally active substrates by PLD. By combining PLD with other technologies such as laser rastering technique, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), and metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), III-nitride-based light-emitting diode (LED) structures have been realized on different thermally active substrates, with high-performance LED devices being demonstrated. This review focuses on the epitaxial growth of group III-nitrides on thermally active substrates by PLD and their use in the development of LED devices. The surface morphology, interfacial property between film and substrate, and crystalline quality of as-grown group III-nitride films by PLD, are systematically reviewed. The corresponding solutions for film homogeneity on large size substrates, defect control, and InGaN films growth by PLD are also discussed in depth, together with introductions to some newly developed technologies for PLD in order to realize LED structures, which provides great opportunities for commercialization of LEDs on thermally active substrates.