Growth of high-quality GaN by halogen-free vapor phase epitaxy

We report the electrical and optical properties of gallium nitride grown by halogen-free vapor phase epitaxy (HF-VPE). The electron mobility of the HF-VPE-GaN layers was found to be comparable to or better than the GaN layers obtained using MOCVD. The positron annihilation spectroscopy analyses revealed that the density of the electroneutral or negatively charged vacancy-type defects in the HF-VPE-GaN layers was below the detection limit (≤1015 cm−3), equivalent to that of a defect-free hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE)-GaN reference sample. Our study shows that the HF-VPE technique can be employed to achieve high-quality and cost-effective bulk crystal and epitaxial layer growth for GaN devices.