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2008 Appl. Phys. Express 1 111102

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Applied Physics Express 1 (2008) 111102

Fabrication of an InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN Heterostructure

with a Flat Surface and High Electron Mobility
Masanobu Hiroki
, Narihiko Maeda, and Takashi Kobayashiy
NTT Photonics Laboratories, NTT Corporation, 3-1 Morinosato Wakamiya, Atsugi, Kanagawa 243-0198, Japan
Received September 29, 2008; accepted October 14, 2008; published online November 14, 2008

We fabricated a novel heterostructure comprising InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy. Owing to the flat surface
of the AlGaN underlayer, the obtained surface is flatter [root mean square (RMS) roughness of 0.27 nm] than that for the conventional
InAlN/AlN/GaN heterostructure (RMS roughness of 0.53 nm). The electron mobility in the new structure is 1360 cm2 V
1 s
1 with NS of
1:85  1013 cm
2 , which is higher that in the conventional one. The insertion of the AlGaN layer into the conventional structure is effective
for improving surface morphology and electron mobility. # 2008 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
DOI: 10.1143/APEX.1.111102

aN-based field effect transistors (FETs) are attrac- 3 120

G tive for high-power and high-frequency applica- In 0.18 Al 0.82 N AlN

InAlN

Electron density (x 10 18 cm-3 )

tions. For these FETs, AlGaN/GaN heterostruc- AlGaN 100
tures are conventionally used. In this structure, two- 2 AlN
dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is generated by the 2DEG
80

Potential (eV)
spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization between AlGaN GaN

and GaN.1,2) Increasing the 2DEG density (NS ) is effective

for improving device performance. To increase NS , the Al
content of the AlGaN barrier layers should be increased.
However, AlGaN with a high Al content is largely strained
with respect to GaN. The large strain could affect the
reliability of devices made with the structures. The new
material InAlN has the potential to replace conventional
AlGaN as the barrier layer. InAlN with an In content of
about 0.17 – 0.18 is lattice-matched to GaN. In the lattice-
matched InAlN/GaN heterostructure, NS exceeding
2  1013 cm2 can be obtained due to the large spontaneous
polarization (PSP ) difference of 0.043 C/m2 between InAlN
and GaN and due to the large conduction band discontinuity
(
EC ) of 1.1 eV.3–5) However, InAlN growth is difficult.
The growth should be performed at low temperature to
incorporate In,6) but the low-temperature growth tends to
result in poor crystal quality. In the early stage, although a
large NS of 1:6  1013 – 3:5  1013 cm2 has been achieved
by using an InAlN barrier, the electron mobility was
relatively low.7–9) Recently, a high electron mobility of over
1000 cm2 V1 s1 for a lattice-matched InAlN barrier has
been reported.10–13) In these studies, an AlN interlayer was
inserted between the InAlN and GaN layers to suppress
alloy-disorder scattering, which has also been demonstrated
in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures.14) Gonschorek et al. re-
ported that the interlayer thickness sensitively affects the
surface flatness and mobility.10) From their results, the
optimal thickness is about 1.1 nm: As the AlN interlayer gets
thinner, mobility decreases; as it gets thicker the surface
becomes rough. These results indicate that optimizing the
AlN interlayer thickness is critical for heteterostructures
with an InAlN barrier layer and that it is difficult to
achieve a flat surface and high electron mobility. In this
paper, we report the fabrication of a novel heterostruc-
ture composed of InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructure
(see inset in Fig. 1) with a flat surface and high electron
mobility.


E-mail address: hiroki@aecl.ntt.co.jp
y
Present affiliation: NTT Advanced Technology Corporation.
111102-1
1 60
GaN 40
0
20
Al xGa 1-x N
-1 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Position (nm)
Fig. 1. Potential profiles and 2DEG distribution in the In0:18 Al0:82 N/
Alx Ga1
x N/AlN/GaN heterostructure. The solid line, dotted line, and
dashed line correspond to x ¼ 0:4, 0.3, and 0.2, respectively. The
inset shows a schematic cross-sectional view of the InAlN/AlGaN/
AlN/GaN heterostructure.
Figure 1 shows conduction-band (EC ) potential profiles of
a lattice-matched In0:18 Al0:82 N (10 nm)/Alx Ga1x N (5 nm)/
AlN (1 nm)/GaN heterostructure, obtained by self-consis-
tently solving one-dimensional Schrödinger and Poisson
equations.15) The values of the band-gap energy and surface
barrier height and band discontinuity are from ref. 5. Other
physical ternary-alloy parameters, such as the piezoelectric
tensor, elastic constants, and spontaneous polarization, are
assumed to be proportional to the composition. As the
parameters for the AlN, GaN, and InN binary alloy, the
values given in ref. 4 were used. We ignore unintentional
donors in the barrier layer. Three Al contents x ¼ 0:2, 0.3,
and 0.4 were examined. For x ¼ 0:2, the EC of AlGaN at the
InAlN interface drops below the Fermi level due to the large

EC and the large charge induced by the PSP of InAlN. The
NS induced at the interface is about 3  1010 cm2 which
would result in parallel conduction and gate leakage. For the
Al content of over 0.3, the EC of AlGaN exceeds the Fermi
level. In addition, NS increases with Al content due to the
increase of the total charge induced by the polarization.
From these results, the Al content in the AlGaN layer should
be high. In this study, we use an AlGaN layer with an Al
content of 0.38, which is the highest value obtainable in our
growth system.
# 2008 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
M. Hiroki et al. Appl. Phys. Express 1 (2008) 111102

The heterostructure was fabricated by low-pressure

vertical metal organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) on 10 6
sapphire substrate. Trymethylgalium, trymethylaluminum,
Al27+Cs133

Secondary ion intensity (cps)

trymethylindium, and ammonia were the precursors of Ga,
Al, In, and N, respectively. First, we grew a 2-m-thick GaN
buffer layer at about 1000  C and at 300 Torr. Next, we
reduced the pressure to 200 Torr and deposited a 1-nm-thick
layer of AlN and a 5-nm-thick layer of Al0:38 Ga0:62 N. Then,
we cooled the wafers down to 780  C and reduced the
pressure to 110 Torr for the growth of an InAlN layer with
thickness of about 10 nm. The carrier gas was switched from
H2 to N2 during the growth interruption. For comparison,
InAlN/AlN/GaN and InAlN/GaN were also fabricated
using the same growth procedure. Surface morphology was
observed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). NS and
electron mobility were estimated from Hall effect measure-
ment in the van der Pauw configuration. It is difficult to
determine the composition of InAlN by only X-ray
diffraction (XRD) because of the possibility that Ga is
incorporated.16) Therefore, we also used secondary ion mass
spectroscopy (SIMS) and Rutherford backscattering spec-
troscopy (RBS). The SIMS depth profiles in Fig. 2 indicate
that a small amount of Ga was incorporated in the InAlN
layer. The Ga probably came from the sidewalls of the
MOVPE reactor. From a calibration using the RBS result,
we determined the Ga content to be about 0.005. This is
negligible, and we therefore ignore the Ga content in this
paper. The In content of 0.18 estimated from SIMS and RBS
agrees well with the XRD result.
Next, we observed the surface morphology by AFM.
Surface images of InAlN/GaN, InAlN/AlN/GaN, and
InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructures are shown in
Figs. 3(a)–3(c), respectively; the surfaces of the underlayers,
i.e., GaN, AlN/GaN, and AlGaN/AlN/GaN are shown in
10 5 In115+Cs133
10 4 In113+Cs133
10 3 Ga71+Cs133
N14+Cs133
10 2
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Sputtering time (s)
Fig. 2. SIMS profiles of the InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructure.
Figs. 3(d)–3(f), respectively. It is clear that the InAlN
surface is strongly affected by the surface of the underlayers.
The surface of the InAlN [Fig. 3(a)] layer grown on the
smooth GaN surface [Fig. 3(d)] is flat with a root mean
square (RMS) roughness of 0.27 nm. In contrast, there are
many large pits in the InAlN/AlN/GaN surface [Fig. 3(b)],
resulting in large RMS roughness of 0.53 nm. These pits
were generated during the growth of AlN interlayer as
seen in Fig. 3(e) due to the small migration and AlN’s
large lattice mismatch of 3% with GaN. Then, these pits
propagated through the InAlN layer grown at the low-
temperature growth of 780  C. The RMS roughness in this

RMS: 0.27 nm RMS: 0.53 nm RMS: 0.27 nm

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e) (f)

Fig. 3. AFM images of the surface morphology of (a) InAlN/GaN, (b) InAlN/AlN/GaN, (c) InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN, (d) GaN, (e) AlN/GaN, and
(f) AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructures.

111102-2 # 2008 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

M. Hiroki et al.
Table I. Hall measurement results for the three types of structures.
Structure InAlN/GaN
In content 0.16
Total barrier thickness (nm) 20
InAlN thickness (nm) 19
AlGaN thickness (nm) — —
NS (cm2 ) 2:07  1013
Electron mobility (cm2 V1 s1 ) 186
Sheet resistance (/sq.) 1620
study is larger than the 0.27 nm in the previous report.10) The
growth condition and the thickness of the AlN interlayer
should be optimized to improve the surface morphology.
The InAlN layer on AlGaN/AlN/GaN is as smooth (RMS
roughness of 0.27 nm) as that on GaN [Fig. 3(c)] even
though the AlN interlayer was not optimized. This flat
surface results from the smooth surface of the AlGaN/AlN/
GaN underlayers [Fig. 3(f)]. The rough surface in the AlN/
GaN became smooth out during the AlGaN growth at a high
temperature of 1000  C. The stripes in Figs. 3(a) and 3(c) are
probably traces of monolayer steps in the underlayers.
Island-like morphology was also observed on the terraces,
and the island height was one or two monolayers. The
atomic flatness on the terraces of the underlayers probably
fluctuated during the InAlN growth because the low growth
temperature resulted in a short migration length. These
results indicate that a flat InAlN surface can be easily
obtained by inserting an AlGaN layer.
Table I summarizes the structural and electrical properties
of the three samples. The surface of the sample without the
AlN interlayer is smooth; however, the electron mobility is
very low (186 cm2 V1 s1 ). In contrast, a high electron
mobility of 1110 cm2 V1 s1 was achieved by inserting the
AlN interlayer. The increase of mobility is consistent with
the previous report.10) Alloy-disorder scattering is probably
very strong in InAlN. In addition, low-temperature growth
and growth interruption might increase interface roughness.
A higher electron mobility of 1360 cm2 V1 s1 was
achieved for the sample with the inserted AlGaN layer.
This means that the heterointerface in the new structure is
more abrupt than that in the conventional one. The rough
surface in the AlN/GaN layer recovered its smoothness
during the AlGaN growth as seen in Fig. 3. The NS of
1:85  1013 cm2 in the InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN is smaller
than that in InAlN/AlN/GaN. This is because the total
polarization of the InAlN/AlGaN/AlN barrier layer is
smaller than that of the InAlN/AlN barrier layer. However,
it is sufficiently larger than the NS of 1:3  1013 cm2 in
Al0:38 Ga0:62 N (15 nm)/AlN/GaN.
In conclusion, we fabricated a novel heterosturcture
composed of InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN. The surface mor-
phology and the electron mobility are significantly improved
111102-3
Appl. Phys. Express 1 (2008) 111102
InAlN/AlN/GaN InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN
0.188 0.18
18.5 14
17.5 8
5
2:00  1013 1:85  1013
1110 1360
281 247
by inserting the AlGaN layer into the conventional InAlN/
AlN/GaN heterostructure. The structure has a flatter surface
(RMS roughness of 0.27 nm) than the conventional InAlN/
AlN/GaN heterostructure (RMS roughness of 0.53 nm).
There are no large pits in the new structure. A high electron
mobility of 1360 cm2 V1 s1 is also obtained. These results
indicate that the InAlN/AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructure
has the potential to effectively use the large polarization and
the large band gap of InAlN for FET operation.
Acknowledgments The authors thank Drs. Kazuhide Kumakura,
Makoto Kasu, and Toshiki Makimoto for their assistance in MOVPE
growth, Dr. Naoteru Shigekawa for useful discussions, and Drs. Takatomo
Enoki and Junji Yumoto for their support and encouragement throughout
this work.
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# 2008 The Japan Society of Applied Physics