Z Liang, R Colby, IH Wildeson, DA Ewoldt, TD Sands, EA Stach, RE García “GaN nanostructure design for optimal dislocation filtering.” Journal of Applied Physics. 108(7):074313, 2010.

Abstract

The effect of image forces in GaN pyramidal nanorod structures is investigated to develop dislocation-free light emitting diodes (LEDs). A model based on the eigenstrain method and nonlocal stress is developed to demonstrate that the pyramidal nanorod efficiently ejects dislocations out of the structure. Two possible regimes of filtering behavior are found: (1) cap-dominated and (2) base-dominated. The cap-dominated regime is shown to be the more effective filtering mechanism. Optimal ranges of fabrication parameters that favor a dislocation-free LED are predicted and corroborated by resorting to available experimental evidence. The filtering probability is summarized as a function of practical processing parameters: the nanorod radius and height. The results suggest an optimal nanorod geometry with a radius of ∼50b (26 nm) and a height of ∼125b (65 nm), in which b is the magnitude of the Burgers vector for the GaN system studied. A filtering probability of greater than 95% is predicted for the optimal geometry.