Cubic Phase GaN on Nano‐grooved Si (100) via Maskless Selective Area Epitaxy

A method of forming cubic phase (zinc blende) GaN (referred as c-GaN) on a CMOS-compatible on-axis Si (100) substrate is reported. Conventional GaN materials are hexagonal phase (wurtzite) (referred as h-GaN) and possess very high polarization fields (∼MV/cm) along the common growth direction of . Such large polarization fields lead to undesired shifts (e.g., wavelength and current) in the performance of photonic and vertical transport electronic devices. The cubic phase of GaN materials is polarization-free along the common growth direction of , however, this phase is thermodynamically unstable, requiring low-temperature deposition conditions and unconventional substrates (e.g., GaAs). Here, novel nano-groove patterning and maskless selective area epitaxy processes are employed to integrate thermodynamically stable, stress-free, and low-defectivity c-GaN on CMOS-compatible on-axis Si. These results suggest that epitaxial growth conditions and nano-groove pattern parameters are critical to obtain such high quality c-GaN. InGaN/GaN multi-quantum-well structures grown on c-GaN/Si (100) show strong room temperature luminescence in the visible spectrum, promising visible emitter applications for this technology.