The influence of indium on the growth of GaN from solution under high pressure

The influence of significant fraction (10–50 mole%) indium in liquid gallium on GaN crystallization from a ternary Ga–In–N solution was analyzed. Crystallization experiments of GaN on GaN-sapphire templates from Ga–In solutions, at 1350–1450 °C, with prior to the growth seed wetting at 1500 °C, and 1.0 GPa N2 pressure, without solid GaN source showed faster growth of GaN on the seed (by a factor of 1.5–2) than using pure gallium solvent. Nevertheless the new grown crystals were morphologically unstable. The instability was reduced by decrease of the wetting temperature down to 1100 °C or by omitting the wetting procedure entirely, which indicated that GaN dissolves much faster in Ga–In melt than in pure Ga and that the unstable growth was caused most likely by complete dissolution of GaN template before the growth. It was observed that the crystals grown on bulk GaN substrates did not show morphological instability observed for GaN-sapphire templates. The influence of indium on thermodynamic and thermal properties of the investigated system is discussed.