phys. stat. sol. (c) 4, No. 7, 2482 2485 (2007) / DOI 10.1002/pssc.

200674758

AlGaN deep ultraviolet LEDs on bulk AlN substrates

Zaiyuan Ren1, Q. Sun1, S.-Y. Kwon1, J. Han*,1, K. Davitt2, Y. K. Song2, A. V. Nurmikko2,
W. Liu3, J. Smart 3, and L. Schowalter 3
1
2
3

Department of Electrical Engineering, Yale University, 15 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06520,
USA
Division of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI 02192, USA
Crystal IS Inc., Green Island, NY 12183, USA

Received 20 September 2006, accepted 3 November 2006

Published online 31 May 2007
PACS 68.55.Jk, 73.40.Kp, 81.15.Gh, 83.85.St, 85.60.Bt, 85.60.Jb
We report the growth of sub-300 nm ultraviolet light emitting diodes (UV LEDs) on bulk AlN substrates.
Heteroepitaxial evolution study through interrupted growth experiments revealed that AlxGa1-xN (x > 0.5)
epilayers can be grown pseudomorphically with well-defined step-flow growth mode below a certain critical thickness. The build-up of compressive strain energy eventually induces a morphological roughening
followed by the admission of misfit dislocations. LEDs grown on bulk AlN substrates exhibit noticable
improvement over those on sapphire in device impedance, efficiency and thermal characteristics under
high-level injection, pointing to a promising substrate platform for high performance III-nitride ultraviolet
optoelectronics.
2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

1 Introduction Most of AlGaN-based deep ultraviolet ( < 300 nm) light emitting diodes (UV
LEDs) [14] are grown on mismatched sapphire substrates which severely limits the device performance
due to a high density of dislocations (mid 1091010 cm2) [4, 5]. Bulk AlN substrates have attracted much
attention because of its close matching to AlGaN in lattice parameters and thermal expansion coefficients, in addition to a much higher thermal conductivity. Proof-of-concept demonstrations of III-nitride
devices on AlN substrates have been reported [6, 7] though little is known about the heteroepitaxial
process. In this paper, heteroepitaxial growth of AlGaN on bulk AlN is examined. A combination of
structural and morphological studies indicates the compressive strain (~1.2% between AlN and
Al0.5Ga0.5N) is not relaxed effectively by plastic dislocating due to a much lower density of dislocations
in bulk AlN, resulting in elastic roughening that resembles previous reports in SiGe/Si and InGaAs/GaAs
systems [8]. Good device performance for deep UV LED on AlN is reported including light output, device impedance and thermal characteristics under high-level injection, suggesting that AlN offers a
promising new route to high performance UV optoelectronics.
2 Experiment details The material growth was carried out by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) in a horizontal-flow reactor (Aixtron 200/4 HT-S) using trimethylgallium (TMGa),
trimethylaluminum (TMAl) and ammonia (NH3). Silane and Meth-Cp2Mg were used as n- and p-type
dopants. Hydrogen (H2) is the carrier gas throughout this study. Nominally c-plane AlN substrates
(0.5) were solvent degreased followed by wet etching in HF before loading into the growth chamber.
Prior to the homoepitaxial growth of AlN at 1150C, the AlN substrates were annealed in-situ under a
mixture of NH3 and H2 [3]. Three superlattices (SL 1, 2 and 3) with an average composition of 0.90,
*

Corresponding author: e-mail: jung.han@yale.edu, Phone: +1 203 432 7567, Fax: +1 203 432 7769

2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

phys. stat. sol. (c) 4, No. 7 (2007)

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0.73, and 0.57 were inserted between AlN and Al0.50Ga0.50N electron transport layer to study the strain
evolution. Each superlattice includes 10 periods of alternating AlxGa1-xN layers of 15 nm thick and
paired compositions of x = 1.0/0.8, 0.8/0.65, and 0.65/0.50. Growth temperature of all the superlattices
and Al0.50Ga0.50N layer was 1070C. Deep UV AlGaN diodes with multiple-quantum wells (MQWs)
active region [3] were grown on top of 1 m n-type Al0.50Ga0.50N layer ([Si] ~ 21019 cm3). The Mg
concentration on the p-side is maintained at a level of around 31019 cm3 to ensure optimum conductivity before the generation of structural defects including inversion domain boundaries [9]. To characterize
the surface morphology, atomic force microscopy (AFM) was conducted using a Digital Instruments
Nanoprobe III model with tapping mode. The Al composition and structural quality of AlGaN were
determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD, Bede D-1 diffractometer) using both symmetric and skewed
symmetric scans. After the epitaxial material deposition, cylindrical mesa-etched LED devices with
optical apertures of 100 m and 50 m diameters were fabricated and light was extracted with similar
procedure to previous report [3]. None of these devices has any additional heat sinking or light extraction
enhancement schemes applied.

Normalized Intensity (a.u.)

3 Results and discussion AFM images after homoeptiaxy of 0.3 m AlN (not shown here) indicate
an overall smooth background with parallel and straight atomic steps, suggesting a low density of screwand mixed type dislocations. High-resolution X-ray diffraction is employed to examine microstructural
quality. The 0.3-m AlN homoepitaxy on AlN substrates typically exhibit a (0002) rocking curve
linewidth around 0.01 (Fig. 1, dash-dotted line). Unlike previous reports [4] of MOCVD-grown AlN
epilayers on sapphire, where a narrow symmetric scan is always accompanied by extremely wide asymmetric scans due to a high in-plane mosaicity, the (1012) diffraction rocking curves yield values typically
between 0.02 and 0.04 (Fig. 1, solid line). After AlN homoepitaxy, interrupted growth studies on
compositionally graded AlGaN superlattices were carried out to reconstruct the hetero-nucleation process ex-situ. Dot-like surface undulation (0.10.2 m in diameter, Figs. 2a and 2d) appears after the
first superlattice (AlN/Al0.80Ga0.20N x10) deposition. At the end of the second superlattice
(Al0.80Ga0.20N/Al0.65Ga0.35N x10), the surface remains atomically smooth (Fig. 2b). The appearance of
straight atomic steps of one monolayer height (~2.5 ) indicates a very low density of dislocations with a
(1012)
FWHM: 90 arcsec
Misorientation of
c-AlN substrate

-200

-100

0.243nm (2.6nm)

0.247nm (2.9nm)

0.682nm (7.3nm)

(a)

(b)

(c)

0.195nm (1.5nm)

0.111nm (0.8nm)

0.196nm (2.0nm)

(d)

(e)

(f)

(0002)
FWHM: 34 arcsec

0
100
(arcsec)

200

Fig. 1 (0002) and (1012) rocking curves of 0.3

m AlN homoepitaxy on bulk AlN. The shoulders on both sides of main peak are related to
misorientation of AlN substrate.

Fig. 2 AFM images of high-Al content AlGaN superlattices on

bulk AlN. The scan area is 10 m 10 m for (a), (b) and (c),
and 1 m 1 m for (d), (e) and (f). (a) and (d) are SL 1; (b)
and (e) are SL 2 and 1; (c) and (f) are SL 3, 2 and 1. AFM rms
values and z scales (in brackets) are labelled.

screw component; the alternating saw-tooth feature (Fig. 2e) is related to difference in growth rate due to
the atomic arrangement along [1100] and [0110] directions [10]. During the growth of the third superlatwww.pss-c.com

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2484

Zaiyuan Ren et al.: AlGaN deep ultraviolet LEDs on bulk AlN substrates

15

0.12
0.08

20

(0002) scans

10

0.04

0.00

0 20 40 60 80 100
Relaxation of Al0.5Ga0.5N (%)

Fig. 3 Relations between surface roughness (triangles), linewidths of (0002) (solid squares), (1012)
(open squares) rocking curves and degree of relaxation
of 1-m Al0.50Ga0.50N on AlN

240

12

180

8
4

280

0
0

20

120
65 mA
60 mA

60

50 mA
40 mA

300

320

340

360

Wavelength (nm)

40

Current (mA)

380

0
60

Light Output Power (W)

0.16

(1012) scans

16

EL Intensity (a.u.)

25

0.20

Voltage (V)

30

0.24

RMS of 20 m x 20 m AFM (nm)

Linewidths of
o
(0002) and (1012) scans ( )

tice (Al0.65Ga0.35N/Al0.50Ga0.50N x10), surface morphology underwent a substantial change with the appearance of large (2-5 m) plateaus or platelets separated by deep trenches or cliff-like edges with a
height of 100 nm (Fig. 2c) and curved atomic steps (Fig. 2f). The deterioration of morphology at this
stage is also correlated with decay in the intensity of specular optical reflectance recorded in situ, suggesting that surface roughening on the scale of optical wavelength has occurred.
In a moderately mismatched (12%) system, strain relaxation normally proceeds through a combination of elastic, morphological roughening and plastic, misfit dislocating [8]. For AlGaN grown on sapphire, the compressive strain is effectively relaxed through the inclination of pre-existing dislocations
(mid 1091010 cm2) [5]. However, for AlGaN grown on bulk AlN, the compressive strain cannot be
relaxed effectively by the same mechanism as AlGaN on sapphire due to a very low density of dislocations. Figure 3 shows the relations between surface morphology roughness, structural quality and strain
relaxation [11] of 1-m Al0.50Ga0.50N on AlN characterized by AFM and X-ray diffractions. An inverse
relation between surface roughness (triangles) and degree of relaxation is demonstrated; Meanwhile,
linewidths of (1012) rocking curves (open squares) increase with the strain relaxation while the
linewidths of (0002) rocking curves (solid squares) remains essentially constant. This result suggests that
elastic roughening provides the initial route of relaxation followed by local admission of misfit dislocations due to stress concentration. The driving force for surface roughing is mitigated after plastic strain
relaxation, and surface smoothness improves subsequently, resembling the observation in high Gecontent SiGe/Si system [8]. The different trends between linewidths of (0002) and (1012) scans indicate
the misfit dislocations generated are almost edge-type dislocations. Understanding and control of the
compressive strain relaxation during AlGaN/AlN heteroepitaxy for device applications are currently in
progress. For 1-m Al0.50Ga0.50N on AlN, X-ray rocking curves as narrow as 122" and 173" have been
observed along (0002) and (1012) diffractions, respectively when the epilayer is fractionally relaxed,
demonstrating a much improved structural quality than AlGaN with similar Al-content on sapphire [1].

Fig. 4 L-I-V characteristics of deep UV LEDs with 50

m diameter on sapphire (dashed line) and AlN (solid
line). Inset is EL spectra with different currents (from
40 mA to 65 mA, 100 m diameter).

Figure 4 shows the dc current-voltage and light output powers measured directly off the chip for
identical device geometries of 50 m diameter UV LEDs grown on AlN (solid line) and sapphire
(dashed line) substrates. The electrical characteristics are markedly improved for device on AlN, showing a much sharper turn-on behaviour and greater than 30% decrease in series resistance. Transmission
line model (TLM) studies on the n- Al0.50Ga0.50N contact layer indicate a sheet resistance of 160 /,
much smaller than sheet resistances of 560-840 / typically achieved for our UV LEDs grown on sapphire substrates. A cw light output power of 210 W is achieved at 2 kA/cm2 (I = 40 mA), corresponding
to a light output power density in excess of 10 W/cm2 and external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) of

2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

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phys. stat. sol. (c) 4, No. 7 (2007)

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0.14%, approximately 4-5 times larger than the maximum power from an identical device on sapphire (in
order to reduce the absorption from AlN substrates, backside output powers reported here were measured
with the AlN substrates lapped to 150 m after device processing). A series of electroluminescence (EL)
spectra at increasing current injections (inset) for a 100 m diameter device, illustrate a peak emission
wavelength of 300 nm and a relatively small long-wavelength contribution. Furthermore, the light output
power shows no thermal rollover. This is attributed to a ten-fold increase in thermal conductivity of AlN
(~ 3.2 W/cm K [6]) over sapphire. While the absolute performance of UV LEDs on AlN at present is still
below the state-of-the-art devices on sapphire [1] due to less-than-optimum junction and quantum well
designs, the comparative study reported in this work for LEDs on different substrates indeed highlight
the importance of dislocation reduction and point to the potentiality of native (AlN) substrates in UV
optoelectronics.
4 Conclusions In summary, on bulk AlN substrates, AlN and AlxGa1-xN (x > 0.5) with much improved structural quality, as well as good performance of AlGaN deep UV LEDs including efficiency,
electrical and thermal characteristics, are achieved, indicating low dislocation density bulk AlN substrate
is promising in supporting closely-matched epitaxy of AlGaN alloys for ultraviolet optoelectronics, although the evolution study suggests that the relaxation of compressive strain between AlGaN and AlN
by surface islanding emerges as a dominant source of surface roughness and structural imperfection.
Acknowledgements This work is supported by the DARPA SUVOS program under SPAWAR Systems Center
Contract No.N66001-02-C-80. S.-Y. Kwon acknowledges the support of the Korea Research Foundation Grant
funded by Korea Government (MOEHRD, Basic Research Promotion Fund) (KRF-2005-214-D00315).

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