Stress reduction in GaN films on (111) silicon-on-insulator substrate grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition

Abstract The GaN film was grown on the (111) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate by metal–organic chemical vapor deposition and then annealed in the deposition chamber. A multiple beam optical stress sensor was used for the in-situ stress measurement, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy were used for the characterization of GaN film. Comparing the characterization results of the GaN films on the bulk silicon and SOI substrates, we can see that the Raman spectra show the 3.0 cm − 1 frequency shift of E 2 (TO), and the full width at half maximum of XRD rocking curves for GaN (0002) decrease from 954 arc sec to 472 arc sec. The results show that the SOI substrates can reduce the tensile stress in the GaN film and improve the crystalline quality. The annealing process is helpful for the stress reduction of the GaN film. The SOI substrate with the thin top silicon film is more effective than the thick top silicon film SOI substrate for the stress reduction.