Molecular beam epitaxial growth of scandium nitride on hexagonal SiC, GaN, and AlN

Abstract

RF plasma assisted MBE growth of scandium nitride (ScN) thin films on Ga-polar GaN (0001)/SiC, Al-polar AlN (0001)/Al2O3, and Si-face 6H-SiC (0001) hexagonal substrates is found to lead to a face centered cubic (rock salt) crystal structure with (111) out-of-plane orientation instead of hexagonal orientation. Cubic (111) twinned patterns in ScN are observed by in situ electron diffraction during epitaxy, and the twin domains in ScN are detected by electron backscattered diffraction and further corroborated by X-ray diffraction. The epitaxial ScN films display very smooth, subnanometer surface roughness at a growth temperature of 750 °C. Temperature-dependent Hall-effect measurements indicate a constant high n-type carrier concentration of ∼1 × 1020/cm3 and an electron mobility of ∼20 cm2/V s.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Oct 21, 2019
Source ID
10.1063/1.5121329

Entities

People

  • Debdeep Jena
  • Huili Grace Xing
  • John Wright
  • Joseph Casamento
  • Reet Chaudhuri

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • Cornell University
  • National Science Foundation

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Materials science

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Nanofabrication and Microfabrication.
  • Semiconductor Device Technology

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Graphene