Morphologies and growth mechanisms of aluminium nitride whiskers

Morphologies of AlN whiskers grown by the vapour–liquid–solid mechanism (VLS) were investigated. Several types of whisker structures, such as growth hill, wavy, crossed and stack structures, were found due to the variation of growth conditions. Growth mechanisms and orientations of AlN whiskers were also studied. Besides preferential crystallographic planes, several other planes were found to be growth layers due to the perturbation of the AlN lattice change caused by dissolution of oxygen. A screw dislocation growth mechanism was clearly confirmed. An oblique growth mechanism was found in this work, which may be the result of two processes: the vapour–liquid–solid process and dissolution of oxygen. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.