Mg incorporation induced microstructural evolution of reactively sputtered GaN epitaxial films to Mg-doped GaN...

Mg-doped GaN films/nanorods were grown epitaxially onc-sapphire by reactive co-sputtering of GaAs and Mg at different N₂percentages in Ar-N₂sputtering atmosphere. Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy revealed that the Mg incorporation increases with increase of Mg area coverage of GaAs target, but does not depend on N₂percentage. In comparison to undoped GaN films, Mg-doped GaN displayed substantial decrease of lateral conductivity and electron concentration with the initial incorporation of Mg, indicatingp-type doping, but revealed insulating behaviour at larger Mg content. Morphological investigations by scanning electron microscopy have shown that the films grown with 2%-4% Mg area coverages displayed substantially improved columnar structure, compared to undoped GaN films, along with rough and voided surface features at lower N₂percentages. With increase of Mg area coverage to 6%, the growth of vertically aligned and well-separated nanorods, terminating with smooth hexagonal faces was observed in the range of 50%-75% N₂in sputtering atmosphere. High-resolution x-ray diffraction studies confirmed the epitaxial character of Mg-doped GaN films and nanorods, which displayed completec-axis orientation of crystallites and a mosaic structure, aligned laterally with thec-sapphire lattice. The catalyst-free growth of self-assembled Mg-doped GaN nanorods is attributed to increase of surface energy anisotropy due to the incorporation of Mg. However, with further increase of Mg area coverage to 8%, the nanorods revealed lateral merger, suggesting enhanced radial growth at larger Mg content.