Epitaxy of gallium nitride in semi-polar direction on silicon

The idea of a new method for growing gallium nitride (GaN) epilayers on (100)-oriented silicon substrates is disclosed. It has been experimentally established that the formation of a special oriented thin (600 nm) buffer layer of aluminum nitride (AlN) by hydride-chloride vapor-phase epitaxy (HVPE) makes possible the growth of GaN in semi-polar direction. For the best epilayers obtained by this method, the X-ray rocking curve half-width is ω_θ(0004) = 30 arcmin. The photoluminescence spectra of GaN films measured at 77 K exhibit both exciton and donor-acceptor recombination bands.