A study of cracking in GaN grown on compliant silicon by molecular beam epitaxy

It is observed that GaN layers grown on silicon substrates often crack. The crack characteristics in hexagonal GaN films on Si(111) has been characterized using scanning electron microscopy and Nomarski optical microscopy. The effects of growth temperature, layer thickness, and V/III ratios on the cracking have been analyzed. The critical thickness for crack initiation was estimated using a simple theoretical model and is shown to have good agreement with experimental results. Crack-free GaN on Si(111) of thicknesses greater than one micron is possible by using low growth temperatures.