HVPE homoepitaxial growth of high quality bulk GaN using acid wet etching method and its mechanism analysis

In this paper, crack-free 2-inch bulk GaN wafer with the thickness up to 3 mm was obtained by HVPE homoepitaxy. A new method of acid wet etching was used to pre-treat GaN substrate before re-growth. The formation of the mesh-like subsurface crack and interface layer were found to be suppressed between the re-growth layer and as-grown GaN substrate. EDS and time varied contact angle measurement proved that chemical etching would decrease the oxygen related surface adsorption and increase atoms diffusion length during HVPE homoepitaxial growth. Moreover, Morphology, Low temperature photoluminescence measurements indicated a reduction in stress of wet etching treated as-grown GaN substrate due to etching effect on its N face. High quality bulk GaN with the dislocation density of 1×106 cm−2 was achieved by using wet etching and HVPE multiple re-growth. It would offer a simple method to obtain bulk GaN with thicker layer and high quality.