Epitaxy of III-nitrides based on two-dimensional materials

Abstract

III-nitrides have attracted huge interest from commercial market of lighting, power electronics and communications due to their unique optoelectronic properties, while their further enlargement is hampered by the limited crystal quality resulting from current heterogeneous epitaxy techniques. Recently, the exotic properties of layered two-dimensional materials have caught wide attention. The weak van der Waals interaction between the layers of two dimensional materials may help III-nitrides improving the crystal quality by relieving mismatching between lattice and thermal expansion, reducing costs of preparation by reusing expensive substrate, and realizing the fabrication of flexible devices, which will facilitates their generalization in wearable and foldable applications. This review present a comprehensive summary on the recent progress in regard of the III-nitride synthesis on the two-dimensional materials, including graphene, hexagonal boron nitride and transition metal dichalcogenides. Various attempts and their results are presented. Two important aspects in the preparation of GaN and AlN on two-dimensional materials are presented, which are the nucleation on defects and the lateral overgrowth of the nitride islands. A detailed knowledge on the nucleation and lateral overgrowth mechanism and precise controlling on the density and distribution of defects are indispensable for the ultimate realization of this route. The challenges and opportunities are also discussed.