Surface Morphology of AlN Nucleation Layer Grown on Si by MOCVD

The AlN nucleation layer (NL) has been deposited on Si (111) substrate by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The result indicates that the growth mode of the AlN NL is in the form of 2-dimensional plane and 3-dimensional island. The proportion of 3-dimensional region increases gradually and the 2-dimensional region reduces correspondingly with the increase of growth time. The decrease of the coverage ratio of AlN grains in the 2-dimensional growth region is due to the effect of etching. AlN film with the single crystal orientation has been deposited on the optimized AlN NL.