Growth of GaBN ternary solutions by organometallic vapor phase epitaxy

Layers of Ga1-xBxN with compositions from x = 0 to x = 0.07 were grown by organometallic vapor phase epitaxy on sapphire substrates using trimethylgallium, triethylboron (TEB) and NH3 as precursors. Growth was done in the temperature range from 450 to 1000°C. The presence of boron was detected by the shift in the (0002) peak position in x-ray diffraction, by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry measurements, and by the changes in the band gap as measured by optical transmission. It was found that for the studied range of compositions the band gap varied from 3.4 eV for x = 0 to 3.63 eVfor x = 0.05. At certain TEB concentrations in the gas phase, the growth rate decreased abruptly, most likely because of a growth poisoning by the onset of growth of a very slow growing B-rich phase. The threshold TEB concentration for this growth poisoning decreased with increasing growth temperature; and at 1000°C, less than 1% of B could be incorporated as a result. GaBN alloys with about 7% substitutional boron were also produced by implantation of 5 × 1016 cm−2 B ions at 60 keV into GaN, as evidenced by the shift of the band edge emission in cathodoluminescence spectra from 3.4 eV for GaN to 3.85 eV for GaBN.