| AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Thin Films Division | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session TF+EM+MI-WeM |
| Session: | Thin Film Processes for Electronics and Optics I |
| Presenter: | David Meyer, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory |
| Authors: | D.J. Meyer, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory D.S. Katzer, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory N. Nepal, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory B.P. Downey, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory M.T. Hardy, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory D.F. Storm, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Development of gallium nitride and related III-N materials thin film growth technology has been instrumental in realizing high performance light-emitting, RF, and power electronic devices for both commercial and military applications. To continue pushing the frontiers of nitride materials research, we have recently incorporated a multi-pocket electron-beam evaporator into our nitride molecular beam epitaxy growth system to enable the evaporation of refractory transition metals. In spite of the complexity of the equilibrium phase diagrams of transition metal nitide (TMN) compounds, we have found that it is possible to grow single-phase TMN thin films epitaxially on SiC and AlN by carefully managing growth kinetics. This talk will discuss our latest results involving TMNs, such as NbNx and TaNx, which can be nearly lattice-matched and integrated within III-N heterostructures. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy indicates that TMN/III-N interfaces are atomically abrupt with no evidence of interdiffusion of the host elements. We anticipate that the device applications of these metallic films are quite broad ranging from selective etching of sacrificial layers for epitaxial lift-off of processed devices, to buried metallic or superconducting electrodes for quantum computation circuit elements, to optical mirrors and waveguides for improved optoelectronics.