Effects of Ga ion irradiation on growth of GaN on SiN substrates by electron cyclotron resonance-assisted molecular beam epitaxy

The possibility of forming GaN layers on Ga-implanted SiN surfaces was investigated using electron cyclotron resonance-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). It is found that the GaN layer initially formed on the SiN surface by Ga implantation at room temperature was amorphous-like, but become to polycrystalline after annealing at 650 °C for 3 min in vacuum. After the MBE growth of GaN, a grain structure of h-GaN was observed on the Ga-implanted SiN surface. The crystallinity of the GaN grown was, however, decreased upon increasing the Ga ion fluence on the SiN surface, which might be due, at least partly, to the formation of Ga clusters by the excess Ga implanted. The present results indicate the possibility of forming patterned GaN layers on SiN by selective Ga implantation on the SiN substrate, using a focused ion beam.